Hamlet
Contents
Author biography............................................................................................3
Historical context............................................................................................3
Royal heirs..............................................................................................................................3
Royal re-marriage...................................................................................................................4
The Reformation.....................................................................................................................4
Related literary works.............................................................................................................5
Tension between Christian and Roman conventions on revenge..........................................5
Contextual historical tension between King and Prince Hamlet............................................5
Setting.............................................................................................................6
Elsinore Castle.........................................................................................................................6
Wittenberg:.............................................................................................................................6
Characters.......................................................................................................6
Hamlet....................................................................................................................................6
Claudius..................................................................................................................................7
Gertrude.................................................................................................................................7
Polonius..................................................................................................................................7
Ophelia....................................................................................................................................8
The Ghost................................................................................................................................8
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern...............................................................................................8
Laertes....................................................................................................................................8
Horatio....................................................................................................................................8
Fortinbras................................................................................................................................9
Yorick......................................................................................................................................9
Plot summary..................................................................................................9
The ending............................................................................................................................10
Themes.........................................................................................................10
Action and inaction...............................................................................................................10
Appearance vs. reality..........................................................................................................11
Women.................................................................................................................................11
Religion, honour and revenge..............................................................................................12
1
, Poison, corruption and death...............................................................................................13
Madness................................................................................................................................15
Symbols.........................................................................................................15
Yorick’s skull..........................................................................................................................15
Hamlet’s Unweeded Gardens...............................................................................................16
Hamlet’s costumes...............................................................................................................17
Ophelia’s flowers..................................................................................................................17
The Murder of Gonzago (the Mousetrap)............................................................................18
Style/Tone.....................................................................................................18
Prose vs. verse:.....................................................................................................................18
Secrets:.................................................................................................................................19
Quotes..........................................................................................................20
Act 1, Scene 1.......................................................................................................................20
Act 1, Scene 2.......................................................................................................................20
Act 1, Scene 3.......................................................................................................................21
Act 1, Scene 4.......................................................................................................................22
Act 1, Scene 5.......................................................................................................................22
Act 2, Scene 1:......................................................................................................................24
Act 2, Scene 2.......................................................................................................................24
Act 3, Scene 1.......................................................................................................................26
Act 3, Scene 2.......................................................................................................................27
Act 3, Scene 4.......................................................................................................................29
Act 4, Scene 5.......................................................................................................................29
Act 4, Scene 7.......................................................................................................................30
Act 5, Scene 1................................................................................................31
Act 5, Scene 2.......................................................................................................................32
The opening scene................................................................................................................32
“To be or not to be” soliloquy:.............................................................................................33
Hamlet..................................................................................................................................33
Claudius:...............................................................................................................................36
Polonius:...............................................................................................................................36
Laertes:.................................................................................................................................37
Gertrude:..............................................................................................................................37
2
, The Ghost:.............................................................................................................................38
Horatio..................................................................................................................................38
The Gravedigger...................................................................................................................38
Appearance vs reality...........................................................................................................38
Religion, honour and revenge..............................................................................................39
Madness................................................................................................................................40
The ending:...........................................................................................................................40
Renaissance: 14th-17th Century.............................................................................................41
Neoclassical period/Age of Enlightenment: Late 17th Century- Late 18th Century...............41
Romanticism: Late 18th- Mid-19th Century............................................................................42
Modernism: Late 19th- Mid-20th Century:.............................................................................42
Psychoanalysis: 20th Century...............................................................................................43
Feminism: 21st Century........................................................................................................43
New Historicism: 21st Century.............................................................................................46
Hamlet’s Mousetrap.............................................................................................................46
Theatre adaptations......................................................................................47
Film adaptations...........................................................................................47
Laurence Olivier’s adaptation...............................................................................................47
Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation.............................................................................................47
Kozinstev’s adaptation..........................................................................................................47
Videos...........................................................................................................48
Crash Course.........................................................................................................................48
Author biography
This play is endlessly personal; his only son, whose name was Hamnet, was dead a few years before,
his father had just died.
Historical context
Shakespeare's plays are timeless and universal. Hamlet, for example, has a
modern militaristic feel to its set and costuming, while at the same time it
maintains a very medieval sensibility.
Royal heirs
Hamlet was written around the year 1600 in the final years of the reign of Queen
Elizabeth I, who had been the monarch of England for more than forty years and
was then in her late sixties. The prospect of Elizabeth’s death and the question of
who would succeed her was a subject of grave anxiety at the time, since
3
, Elizabeth had no children, and the only person with a legitimate royal claim,
James of Scotland, was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and therefore
represented a political faction to which Elizabeth was opposed. (When Elizabeth
died in 1603, James did inherit the throne, becoming King James I.)
It is no surprise, then, that many of Shakespeare’s plays from this period,
including Hamlet, concern transfers of power from one monarch to the next.
These plays focus particularly on the uncertainties, betrayals, and upheavals that
accompany such shifts in power, and the general sense of anxiety and fear that
surround them. The situation Shakespeare presents at the beginning of Hamlet is
that a strong and beloved king has died, and the throne has been inherited not
by his son, as we might expect, but by his brother. Still grieving the old king, no
one knows yet what to expect from the new one, and the guards outside the
castle are fearful and suspicious.
Royal re-marriage
Shakespeare’s audience would be struck by the parallels between Gertrude’s
hasty re-marriage and the scandal surrounding Mary Queen of Scots. Mary failed
to observe a proper period of mourning for henry, choosing to remarry a few
short months after her husband’s death, compounding her disrespect for custom
by marrying Bothwell, the man commonly believed to have murdered her
husband.
The Reformation
Hamlet is in many ways a product of the Reformation, in which Protestants broke
away from the until-then dominant Catholic Church, as well as the skeptical
humanism of late Renaissance Northern Europe, which held that there were
limits on human knowledge. Hamlet's constant anxiety about the difference
between appearance and reality, as well as his concerns about and difficulties
with religion (the sinfulness of suicide, the unfairness that killing a murderer
while the murderer is praying would result in sending the murder to heaven) can
be seen as directly emerging from the breaks in religion and thought brought on
by the Reformation and Renaissance humanist thought.
Shakespeare’s drama is innovative and challenging in exactly the way of the
Renaissance. It examines the questions, the beliefs, assumptions and politics
upon which Elizabethan society was founded. And although the plays always
conclude in a restoration of order and stability, many critics are inclined to argue
that their imaginative energy goes into subverting, rather than reinforcing,
traditional values.
Renaissance culture was intensely nationalistic. With the break-up of the
internationalism of the Middle Ages the evolving nation states which still mark
the map of Europe began for the first time to acquire distinctive cultural
identities. Shakespeare is equally preoccupied with national identity. His history
plays tell an epic story that examines how modern England came into being
through the conflicts of the fifteenth-century Wars of the Roses which brought
the Tudors to the throne. He is fascinated, too, by the related subject of politics
and the exercise of power. With the collapse of medieval feudalism and the
authority of local barons, the royal court in the Renaissance came to assume a
new status as the centre of power and patronage. It was here that the destiny of
4
Contents
Author biography............................................................................................3
Historical context............................................................................................3
Royal heirs..............................................................................................................................3
Royal re-marriage...................................................................................................................4
The Reformation.....................................................................................................................4
Related literary works.............................................................................................................5
Tension between Christian and Roman conventions on revenge..........................................5
Contextual historical tension between King and Prince Hamlet............................................5
Setting.............................................................................................................6
Elsinore Castle.........................................................................................................................6
Wittenberg:.............................................................................................................................6
Characters.......................................................................................................6
Hamlet....................................................................................................................................6
Claudius..................................................................................................................................7
Gertrude.................................................................................................................................7
Polonius..................................................................................................................................7
Ophelia....................................................................................................................................8
The Ghost................................................................................................................................8
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern...............................................................................................8
Laertes....................................................................................................................................8
Horatio....................................................................................................................................8
Fortinbras................................................................................................................................9
Yorick......................................................................................................................................9
Plot summary..................................................................................................9
The ending............................................................................................................................10
Themes.........................................................................................................10
Action and inaction...............................................................................................................10
Appearance vs. reality..........................................................................................................11
Women.................................................................................................................................11
Religion, honour and revenge..............................................................................................12
1
, Poison, corruption and death...............................................................................................13
Madness................................................................................................................................15
Symbols.........................................................................................................15
Yorick’s skull..........................................................................................................................15
Hamlet’s Unweeded Gardens...............................................................................................16
Hamlet’s costumes...............................................................................................................17
Ophelia’s flowers..................................................................................................................17
The Murder of Gonzago (the Mousetrap)............................................................................18
Style/Tone.....................................................................................................18
Prose vs. verse:.....................................................................................................................18
Secrets:.................................................................................................................................19
Quotes..........................................................................................................20
Act 1, Scene 1.......................................................................................................................20
Act 1, Scene 2.......................................................................................................................20
Act 1, Scene 3.......................................................................................................................21
Act 1, Scene 4.......................................................................................................................22
Act 1, Scene 5.......................................................................................................................22
Act 2, Scene 1:......................................................................................................................24
Act 2, Scene 2.......................................................................................................................24
Act 3, Scene 1.......................................................................................................................26
Act 3, Scene 2.......................................................................................................................27
Act 3, Scene 4.......................................................................................................................29
Act 4, Scene 5.......................................................................................................................29
Act 4, Scene 7.......................................................................................................................30
Act 5, Scene 1................................................................................................31
Act 5, Scene 2.......................................................................................................................32
The opening scene................................................................................................................32
“To be or not to be” soliloquy:.............................................................................................33
Hamlet..................................................................................................................................33
Claudius:...............................................................................................................................36
Polonius:...............................................................................................................................36
Laertes:.................................................................................................................................37
Gertrude:..............................................................................................................................37
2
, The Ghost:.............................................................................................................................38
Horatio..................................................................................................................................38
The Gravedigger...................................................................................................................38
Appearance vs reality...........................................................................................................38
Religion, honour and revenge..............................................................................................39
Madness................................................................................................................................40
The ending:...........................................................................................................................40
Renaissance: 14th-17th Century.............................................................................................41
Neoclassical period/Age of Enlightenment: Late 17th Century- Late 18th Century...............41
Romanticism: Late 18th- Mid-19th Century............................................................................42
Modernism: Late 19th- Mid-20th Century:.............................................................................42
Psychoanalysis: 20th Century...............................................................................................43
Feminism: 21st Century........................................................................................................43
New Historicism: 21st Century.............................................................................................46
Hamlet’s Mousetrap.............................................................................................................46
Theatre adaptations......................................................................................47
Film adaptations...........................................................................................47
Laurence Olivier’s adaptation...............................................................................................47
Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation.............................................................................................47
Kozinstev’s adaptation..........................................................................................................47
Videos...........................................................................................................48
Crash Course.........................................................................................................................48
Author biography
This play is endlessly personal; his only son, whose name was Hamnet, was dead a few years before,
his father had just died.
Historical context
Shakespeare's plays are timeless and universal. Hamlet, for example, has a
modern militaristic feel to its set and costuming, while at the same time it
maintains a very medieval sensibility.
Royal heirs
Hamlet was written around the year 1600 in the final years of the reign of Queen
Elizabeth I, who had been the monarch of England for more than forty years and
was then in her late sixties. The prospect of Elizabeth’s death and the question of
who would succeed her was a subject of grave anxiety at the time, since
3
, Elizabeth had no children, and the only person with a legitimate royal claim,
James of Scotland, was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and therefore
represented a political faction to which Elizabeth was opposed. (When Elizabeth
died in 1603, James did inherit the throne, becoming King James I.)
It is no surprise, then, that many of Shakespeare’s plays from this period,
including Hamlet, concern transfers of power from one monarch to the next.
These plays focus particularly on the uncertainties, betrayals, and upheavals that
accompany such shifts in power, and the general sense of anxiety and fear that
surround them. The situation Shakespeare presents at the beginning of Hamlet is
that a strong and beloved king has died, and the throne has been inherited not
by his son, as we might expect, but by his brother. Still grieving the old king, no
one knows yet what to expect from the new one, and the guards outside the
castle are fearful and suspicious.
Royal re-marriage
Shakespeare’s audience would be struck by the parallels between Gertrude’s
hasty re-marriage and the scandal surrounding Mary Queen of Scots. Mary failed
to observe a proper period of mourning for henry, choosing to remarry a few
short months after her husband’s death, compounding her disrespect for custom
by marrying Bothwell, the man commonly believed to have murdered her
husband.
The Reformation
Hamlet is in many ways a product of the Reformation, in which Protestants broke
away from the until-then dominant Catholic Church, as well as the skeptical
humanism of late Renaissance Northern Europe, which held that there were
limits on human knowledge. Hamlet's constant anxiety about the difference
between appearance and reality, as well as his concerns about and difficulties
with religion (the sinfulness of suicide, the unfairness that killing a murderer
while the murderer is praying would result in sending the murder to heaven) can
be seen as directly emerging from the breaks in religion and thought brought on
by the Reformation and Renaissance humanist thought.
Shakespeare’s drama is innovative and challenging in exactly the way of the
Renaissance. It examines the questions, the beliefs, assumptions and politics
upon which Elizabethan society was founded. And although the plays always
conclude in a restoration of order and stability, many critics are inclined to argue
that their imaginative energy goes into subverting, rather than reinforcing,
traditional values.
Renaissance culture was intensely nationalistic. With the break-up of the
internationalism of the Middle Ages the evolving nation states which still mark
the map of Europe began for the first time to acquire distinctive cultural
identities. Shakespeare is equally preoccupied with national identity. His history
plays tell an epic story that examines how modern England came into being
through the conflicts of the fifteenth-century Wars of the Roses which brought
the Tudors to the throne. He is fascinated, too, by the related subject of politics
and the exercise of power. With the collapse of medieval feudalism and the
authority of local barons, the royal court in the Renaissance came to assume a
new status as the centre of power and patronage. It was here that the destiny of
4
