Rosencrantz

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are characters in William Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet. They are courtiers the king sends to spy on Hamlet, using their claimed friendship with him to gain his confidence. The characters were revived in W. S. Gilbert's satire, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and as the alienated heroes of Tom Stoppard's absurdist play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Rosencrantz and Gyldenstjerne/Gyllenstierna were names of Danish noble families of the 16th century; records of the Danish royal coronation of 1596 show that one tenth of the aristocrats participating bore one or the other name. James Voelkel suggests that the characters were named after Frederick Rosenkrantz and Knud Gyldenstierne, who had visited England in 1592.