Hamlet

1
Hamlet

• some background

2
Time Period

• Written in 1599
• Six years before Macbeth
• Queen Elizabeth elderly succession in question
• Play set in 1000-1100 around the time Beowulf
  was written and the same time period of Macbeth

3
International Affairs

• Campaigns in Ireland
• Queen Elizabeths Navy had repelled an Spanish
  Armada invasion
• Hamlet set in Denmark who had invaded in the time
  period off the play

4
Background of play

• Other less successful versions
• Historical basis in Saxo-Grammaticus history for
  a similar story
• Similar to the story of Edward the Confessor
  (character in Macbeth)

5
Succession

• Most of Shakespeares historical plays deal with
  this issue
• Before hierarchical succession
• Chosen by nobility
• Right person/bloodline
• Quality leader
• Done properly reflecting divine will

6
Events before the drama

• Elder Hamlet - strong leader
• Defeated Elder Fortinbras of Norway
• Popular king
• Hamlets son, Hamlet, is away at college
• Elder Hamlet dies, apparently, from a snake bite
• Within a month Elder Hamlets brother, Claudius,
  is named king and marries Elder Hamlets wife,
  Gertrude.
• When young Hamlet returns hes POed.

7
Ghosts

• Shakespearian audiences believed in ghosts
• However, these were not ghosts of specific people
• However. they could take the shape of different
  people like in Macbeth

8
Chivalry vs. Law

• Avenge your fathers murderer
• Thou shalt not murder
• No monarch is above the law?...

9
Jungian Connections

• Characters assume many personas to get what they
  want
• Desires sublimated for other goals and
  appearances
• Shadow personalities develop into complexes
• To be or not to be - who I am and what Im
  supposed to do

10
Other interpretations

• Medical - melancholy
• Fatal flaw - inaction, hesitation, irresolution
• Freudian Hamlet wants to bed his mamma
• Feminist the mans keeping us down

11
Why so important?

• Very long
• Never see the same play twice
• Long monologues
• Fortinbras, Rosencrantz and Gildenstern, Osric,
  The Players
• Many layers, personas, motivations

12
The language"To be, or not to be"

• Frailty, thy name is woman!
• Neither a borrower nor a lender be
• This above all to thine own self be true,
• Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
• Murder most foul, ...
• ...brevity is the soul of wit,
• Though this be madness, yet there is method in
  't.
• There is nothing either good or bad but thinking
  makes it so.
• O, woe is me,
• The lady doth protest too much, methinks.