Week Two

1
Week Two

• 1. Three literary works
• 2. Historical and Biographical Approaches
• 3. Shakespeares Hamlet

2
Historical and Biographical Approaches

• I. General Observations
• II. Historical and Biographical Approaches in
  Practice
• A. To His Coy Mistress
• D. Young Goodman Brown
• E. Everyday Use

3
To His Coy Mistress

• Poet Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)
• Poem
• Theme carpe diem

4
To His Coy Mistress

• As in courtly love, the coy mistress was
  treated like a goddess.
• Yet later in the poem she was also reminded that
  she was in fact human with no Greek gods or
  Biblical figures power to stop time. Therefore
  she should not waste time and should seize the
  day.
• Marvell was a well educated man and a Puritan.
  That explains the numerous allusions on Greek
  mythology, courtly love and the Bible.

5
Allusions in To His Coy Mistress

• Bible 4th BC to conversion of Jews to
  Christianity / the Flood
• Greek mythology Times winged chariot/
  slow-chapped power (cannibalism of Kronos)
• Metaphysical conceits vegetable love / lovers
  roll up into one ball/ comparison of worms will
  violate the mistresss chastity.

6
Young Goodman Brown

• Author Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
• A short story
• Hawthornes famous novel The Scarlet Letter
• Film The scarlet letter A stands for adultery
• Religion, Calvinism and Witches

7
Young Goodman Brown

• Story took place at the days of King William
  (reigned 1688-1702)
• It was written in a Puritan New England
  (Calvinism) background
• Calvinism includes the doctrine of elective
  salvation that means people are chosen for
  heaven or hell even before birth.
• Therefore appearance is misleading, an outwardly
  righteous person can be a damned soul. (As in the
  story)

8
Puritan beliefs in Young Goodman Brown

• Although modern readers may consider the
  witchcraft and Devil in the story as mere
  imaginations, Puritans in that time believed them
  to be real.
• Young Goodman Brown may be read as an example
  of Satanism.
• Although there is no credible record of Satanism
  killing, many believed Satanism still exists.

9
Everyday Use for your grandmamma

• Author Alice Walker (1944- )
• A short story
• Received the Pulitzer Prize for 1982 novel The
  Color Purple
• Film The Color Purple
• Racism, Sexism, Lesbians, Sisterhood

10
Everyday Use for your grandmamma

• Set in the 1970s in racially segregated American
  South.
• The narrator of the story was like Alice Walkers
  mother a hardworking and strong woman.
• Maggie resembled young Alice Walker the scar,
  the shyness and lack of self-esteem.

11
Everyday Use for your grandmamma

• Everyday Use took place at a time and place
  when dramatic changes of racial relationships was
  happening. (The famous Brown vs. Board of
  Education case)
• Alice Walker is herself a strong civil right
  activist.

12
Everyday Use for your grandmamma

• Unlike Alice Walker, the narrator and Maggie in
  the story didnt rebel against discrimination and
  oppression, but tried to find their peace and
  satisfaction in the status quo.
• Every Use can be seen as Walkers tribe to
  similar women in that time who prevailed by
  enduring and affirming the best in their troubled
  heritage.

13
Historical and Biographical Approaches in
Practice Hamlet

• Author William Shakespeare(1564-1616)
• Script dated around 1599-1600
• An immediate success in its time and one of the
  most staged plays in history

14
Historical and Biographical Approaches in
Practice Hamlet

• Queen Elizabeths advanced age and poor health
  leads to the precarious state of the succession
  to the British crown.

Queen Elizabeth by Nicholas Hilliard
(1585)Hatfield House
15

• Hence, Shakespeares decision to mount a
  production of Hamlet, with its usurped throne and
  internally disordered state, comes as no
  surprise.

16

• Shakespeare's "Hamlet" was a remake of an already
  popular play, based in turn on an episode from
  the Dark Ages, the lawless, might-makes-right era
  that followed the collapse of Roman-era
  civilization.

Ophelia
17

• In the original legend, the prince was still a
  child when his father was murdered. And he
  learned of the murder from the beginning.
• Therefore he had to act insane in order to
  survive and wait for his revenge.
• The prince in this version was not a melancholic
  youth but a model of heroes.

The Spanish Tragedy, a predecessor of Hamlet
18

• There is some ground for thinking that Ophelias
  characterization of Hamlet may be intended to
  suggest the Earl of Essex.

The portrait of Earl of Essex
19

• Another contemporary historical figure, the Lord
  Treasurer, Burghley, has been seen by some in the
  character of Polonius.

The Lord Treasurer, Burghley
20
Knowing about eleventh-century Danish court life
or about Elizabethan England is particularly
germane to analysis of Hamlet.
21

• In Hamlets day the Danish throne was an elective
  one. The royal council, composed of the most
  powerful nobles in the land, named the next king.

The third quarto of Hamlet (1605) a straight
reprint of the 2nd quarto (1604)
22
Hamlet, Gertrude and the ghost

• The custom of the thrones descending to the
  oldest son of the late monarch had not yet
  crystallized into law.

23
The charge of incest against the Queen

• Although her second marriage to the brother of
  her deceased husband would not be considered
  incestuous today by many civil and religious
  codes, it was so to considered in Shakespeares
  day.

Hamlet and Horatio in the Graveyard, 1839
24
Hamlets role in revenge

• Modern readers/playgoers may think that one of
  Hamlets flaws is that he took revenge into his
  own hands and not resort to law.
• However, in Shakespeares time, Hamlet, the son
  of a murdered father, and more importantly, the
  son of an usurped king, was not only the
  legitimate revenger, it was his duty to take
  revenge and restore order to Denmark.

25
What is melancholy to Elizabethans?

• Nervous instability.
• Rapid and extreme changes of feeling and mood.
• The disposition to be for the time absorbed in a
  dominant feeling or mood, whether joyous or
  depressed.

Hamlet and the Gravediggers by Jean
Dagnan-Bouverte
26

• If we examine Hamlets actions and speeches
  closely through Elizabethans eyes, we will
  realize that at least part of Hamlets problem is
  that he is a victim of extreme melancholy.

Ophelia drowned
27
Different versions of Hamlet
Hamlet in German
Hamlet in German
The Raj Hamlet Shakespeare set in India
28
Many Hamlets
Mel Gibson, with Glenn Close as Gertrude
Laurence Olivier
Kenneth Branagh
Richard Burton
29
Ethan Hawke, with Julia Stiles as Ophelia
Campbell Scott
Kevin Kline, with Dana Ivey as Gertrude
Ethan Hawke as Hamlet
30
Shamlet! ??????
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31
Related links and resources about Shakespeare and
Hamlet

• The life of Queen Elizabeth http//www.luminarium
  .org/renlit/elizabio.htm
• BBC- Drama- 60 seconds Shakespeare
  http//0rz.net/e61U6  
• ????? ltlt????gtgt http//www.pingfong.com.tw/shamlet2
  006/shamlet_02.htm
• Kakiseni.com our Hamlet http//www.kakiseni.com/a
  rticles/features/MDYyNA.html
• Hamlet in Wikipedia http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H
  amlet