Historical and Social Background

1
Historical and Social Background

• Hamlet
• Elizabethan/Jacobean Drama

2
Historical and Social Background

• Look closely at the portrait of Elizabeth I and
  consider the quotations on the sheets on your
  desks
• Then, do the same with the portrait of James I

3
Historical Background

• Elizabeth I reigned from 1558-1603 victorious
  monarch, feminine, naval power, secured English
  boundaries, conquered the forces of evil,
  economic success, imperial expansion into the new
  world
• Reign stability, prosperity, peace and order in
  contrast to the unrest and insecurity of an
  earlier age Tudor dynasty
• Consider the impact of religion on any text from
  this period Catholic or protestant

4
Exploration Colonisation
5
Exploration Colonisation

• The reign of Elizabeth was a great age of English
  exploration and expansion led eventually to the
  foundation of the British Empire in the C17th
  C18th but brought England into conflict with
  Spain.
• The later years of Elizabeth's reign also saw a
  long and expensive war in Ireland.

6
Exploration Colonisation

• 1553 - Sir Hugh Willoughby took 3 ships to find
  the Northeast Passage 2 were lost, but the 3rd
  captained by Richard Chancellor reached
  Archangel.Chancellor went to Moscow, met Ivan
  the Terrible, and returned to found the Muscovy
  Company (1555).

7
Exploration Colonisation

• 1576-78 - Sir Martin Frobisher tried, but failed
  to find a Northwest Passage, landed in Greenland
  and Canada.
• 1585-87 - John Davies  made 3 more voyages to
  Greenland and the Northwest. He sailed further
  north than any previous English sailor.
• 1577-80 -  Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the
  globe. It was widely believed that there was also
  a large wealthy Southern Continent, and Drake was
  searching for this in the South Pacific
  (plundering Spanish bases as he went).

8
Exploration Colonisation

• Frobisher Sir Humphrey Gilbert (1539?-83)
  founded a colony in Newfoundland (1583), but
  their ship was lost on its return voyage. Sir
  Humphrey  Gilbert's step-brother, Sir Walter
  Raleigh (1562-1618) decided to try and found a
  colony further south on Roanoke Island (now in
  North Carolina).

9
Exploration Colonisation

• Original settlers died and the lessons learnt
  from the "Lost Colony" of Roanoke helped ensure
  that the next Virginia colony (1607) was better
  funded and organized

10
Trade

• Most English trade was with Europe, but English
  merchants were looking further afield
• 1581 the Turkey Company was formed, and in 1592
  it merged with the Venice Company (founded 1583)
  to form the Levant Company. It had a patent from
  Elizabeth I for the exclusive right to trade in
  currants. The Company also purchased wine, cotton
  and silk from the Eastern Mediterranean.
• 1585 The Barbary Company (formed in 1551 to trade
  with North Africa) was granted a monopoly by
  Elizabeth it was then the main source of sugar
  for the English market.
• 1600 The East India Company was founded it
  contested Spanish and Portuguese control of the
  spice trade, trading directly with the East
  Indies.The East India Company was formed by
  London merchants eager to tap into the wealth
  there.

11
Social Hierarchy

• The King
• The nobility
• Gentlemen of varying degrees
• Yeomen - English freemen who took on various
  roles of responsibility - jury service, church
  wardens etc. Free holders of land
• Tenants
• Skilled Labourers
• Landless Labourers (unskilled)
• Other work such as milkmaids, servants and
  millers were usually beholden to the Lord of the
  Manor.

12
Social Hierarchy

• This description was given in 1577
• We in England, divide our people commonly into
  four sorts, as gentlemen, citizens or burgesses,
  yeomen, and artificers or labourers. Of gentlemen
  the first and chief (next the king) be the
  prince, dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, and
  barons and these are called gentlemen of the
  greater sort, or (as our common usage of speech
  is) lords and noblemen and next unto them be
  knights, esquires, and, last of all, they that
  are simply called gentlemen.

13
Social Background

• Ordered universe fixed by God (heavenly, human,
  natural)
• Class and hierarchy
• Christ as redeeming and the fall as part of Gods
  plan
• Behaviour attributed to astrological causes
• Duality of human nature
• Kingship divinely ordained, Machiavelli
• Plague
• Puritanism

14
The English Renaissance

• Dominant art form Literature, not visual art
• key literary figures now generally considered to
  be the poet Edmund Spenser the philosopher
  Francis Bacon poets and playwrights Christopher
  Marlowe, William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson and
  the poet John Milton. Sir Thomas More is often
  considered one of the earliest writers of the
  English Renaissance. Thomas Tallis and William
  Byrd were the most notable English musicians of
  the time.

15
Beliefs the humours

• Man was formed by a natural combination of the
  four elements the dull elements of earth and
  waterboth tending to fall to the centre of the
  universeand air and fireboth tending to rise.
  When the elements mixed they shaped man's
  temperament. Each element possessed two of the
  four primary qualities which combined into a
  "humour" or human temperament earth (cold and
  dry melancholy), water (cold and moist
  phlegmatic) air (hot and moist sanguine) fire
  (hot and dry choleric).

16
Mans body

• Like his soul and his humours, man's body
  possessed cosmic affinities the brain with the
  Moon the liver with the planet Jupiter the
  spleen with the planet Saturn. Assigned to each
  of the stars and the sphere of fixed stars was a
  hierarchy of incorporeal spirits, angels or
  daemons. On earth, the fallen angels and Satan,
  along with such occult forces as witches,
  continued to tempt man and lead him on to sin.

17
Background to Elizabethan Drama

• Links back to medieval miracle and morality
  plays linked to church
• Early 16th century the relationship between state
  and church changed different sects had varying
  views, theatre was supported by the court
• Contemporaries included Thomas Kyd, Thomas Nashe
  and Christopher Marlowe importance of Dr
  Faustus

18
Aristotle and his Principles of Tragedy The
Poetics

• Tragedy is a representation of an action, which
  is serious, complete in itself and of a certain
  length
• Acted and not narrated
• Excites pity or fear and allows catharsis - a
  healthy release for such emotions
• Tragic heroes are virtuous and good men whose
  misfortune is a tragic flaw in character and not
  a vice
• Tragic plot is from happiness to misery fall
  from a great height

19
Chaucer on tragedy

• Tragedie is to seyn a certeyn stories, As
  olde bookes maken us memorie, Of hym that
  stood in greet prosperitee, And is yfallen
  out of heigh degree Into myserie, and endeth
  wrecchedly GEOFFREY CHAUCER, The Monk's Tale
  (late 14th century)

20
Tragedy

• Injustice of life trials and death of a hero
  who was an important person (courtly). Their
  death leads to the downfall of others
• Hero falls due to weakness in character fatal
  flaw
• Revenge Tragedy
• Melancholy hero is called upon to punish an
  evildoer for a crime that has been committed
• Ghost cannot rest until avenged (traditional
  figure)
• Private revenge for family honour
• Ends with death

21
Elizabethan Theatre

• Drama became secularised
• First theatre was built in 1576 similar in
  design to an Elizabethan courtyard
• Audience consisted of a range of social classes
  defined by positioning in theatre
• No curtain or scenery indication of where scene
  occurred was built into the words of the play
• Women did not perform on the stage
• Shakespeares plays were not original plots
  borrowed from contemporaries and histories

22
Staging

• Awning above stage was called the heavens
  painted with zodiac symbols and stars
• Area below the stage was hell
• Middle area was the world of the living
• Created a metaphorical universe good characters
  enter from or into heaven, bad characters enter
  from or exit into hell
• Scenery was symbolic and not realistic
• Performances were in daylight always!

23
Sketch of the Swan Theatre c. 1596
24
Hamlet

• Hamlet was written in around 1601 - the middle
  point of Shakespeare's playwriting career. There
  is an entry in the Stationers' Register of a
  performance of Hamlet by the Lord Chamberlain's
  Men in 1602 Entred for his Copie A booke
  called the Revenge of Hamlett Prince of
  Denmarke as yt was latelie Acted by the Lord
  Chamberleyne his servants.

25
Historical Background

• Traditionally, Shakespeare himself is said to
  have played the Ghost in the original production!
  

26
Sources for Hamlet

• Maybe based on an earlier play called Hamlet by
  Thomas Kyd no longer in existence
• Echoes a story written by Danish historian Saxo
  Grammaticus in the 12th and 13th centuries.
  Published in 1514. Not translated into English
  until 1608 so not borrowed directly.
  Translated into French in 1570 which may have
  been the basis for Shakespeares play
• Classical influences of Plautus and Seneca

27
Whos Who

• Hamlet - Prince of Denmark. A student at the
  University of Wittenberg, Hamlet returns to
  Denmark on his father's death. He is unhappy
  because his mother has remarried quickly to his
  uncle, Claudius
• Ghost - The ghost of the old king Hamlet. He
  returns from Purgatory to tell his son he has
  been murdered and asks him to revenge his death.

28
Whos Who

• Claudius - King of Denmark, the late king's
  brother and Hamlet's uncle. Soon after the old
  king's death, Claudius marries his sister-in-law
  Queen Gertrude.
• Gertrude - Hamlet's mother, the old king's widow,
  now married to Claudius.

29
Whos Who

• Polonius The Lord Chamberlain, Claudius's chief
  counsellor. He is the father of Laertes and
  Ophelia.
• Ophelia - Polonius's daughter, in love with
  Hamlet.
• Laertes - Polonius's son who goes to France with
  permission from Claudius and his father

30
Whos Who

• Voltimand -A courtier, sent as ambassador to
  Norway.
• Osric - A courtier.
• Francisco, Barnardo Marcellus officers of the
  watch

31
Whos Who

• Horatio -A scholar and friend of Hamlets from
  the University of Wittenberg.
• Rosencrantz and Guildernstern - Old friends of
  Hamlet paid by the new king, Claudius, to spy on
  the prince.

32
Whos Who

• Player King, queen other actors in the company
  - Who agrees to perform a play Hamlet calls The
  Mousetrap Player Queen
• First gravedigger - The sexton who digs Ophelia's
  grave Second gravediggerThe gravedigger's
  assistant
• PriestThe priest at Ophelia's funeral

33
Whos Who

• Fortinbras - Prince of Norway, whose father was
  killed in single combat by old King Hamlet.
  Fortinbras wants to regain the lands Norway lost
  to Denmark when his father died.
• Norwegian Soldiers

34
The play