Saxo Grammaticus

Saxo Grammaticus (săk`sō grəmăt`ĭkəs), c.1150–c.1220, the first important Danish historian. He was in the service of Absalon, archbishop of Lund, at whose suggestion Saxo wrote the Gesta Danorum (or Historia Danica). The first nine books, translated (1893, repr. 1967) Danish History, are mostly composed of oral tradition and legends concerning the early Danes, including the story of Hamlet. The remaining seven books, dealing more with contemporary events, are an extremely valuable source for Danish history. The cognomen grammaticus [learned] was probably bestowed on Saxo after his death.

Bibliography

See R. G. Latham, Two Dissertations on the Hamlet of Saxo Grammaticus and Shakespear (1872, repr. 1973).

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Saxo Grammaticus

(flourished 12th century–early 13th century) Danish historian. Little is known of Saxo's life except that he was from Sjælland, born to a family of warriors, and probably served as clerk to the archbishop of Lund. His 16-volume Gesta Danorum (“Story of the Danes”) is the first important work on the history of Denmark and the first Danish contribution to world literature. A panorama of his country's antiquity and traditions, it inspired many 19th-century Danish Romantic poets and was the original source of the story of William Shakespeare's Hamlet. Saxo's brilliant, ornate Latin earned him the name “Grammaticus” in the 14th century.

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Saxo Grammaticus

?1150--?1220, Danish chronicler, noted for his Gesta Danorum, a history of Denmark down to 1185, written in Latin, which is partly historical and partly mythological, and contains the Hamlet (Amleth) legend