Shakespeare and Nominal Coincidence
An extract from “Shakespeare: The Evidence”
Both sides in this debate occasionally have to appeal to coincidence. When one’s opponent appeals to ‘coincidence,’ it can naturally be very frustrating, and it can be tempting to wonder what the odds might be that such a coincidence could occur. However perplexing and inexplicable, coincidence is nevertheless a real phenomenon. Its existence is amply illustrated, in the case of Shakespeare, by the following fascinating examples, both linked to coincidences of name.
Shakespearean Drownings
The following two drownings have been put forward as ‘models for Ophelia’:
In 1569, Jane Shaxpere drowned while picking flowers (just as Ophelia would do, some thirty years later, in Hamlet) twenty miles from Stratford-upon-Avon.1
On 17 December 1579, Katherine Hamlett was drowned in the River Avon (at Tiddington, just over a mile east of Stratford-upon-Avon).2
But the fact there are two possible models suggests what we have is coincidence. Even more so when you take into account a further drowning six months before that of another Katherine Hamlet:
On 6 July 1579, one William Shakespeare (of Warwick, 9 miles from Stratford-upon-Avon) drowned while bathing in the River Avon.3
The fact is that:
