HAMLET - CULTURAL
CONTEXT
Hamlet has been incredibly influential on popular culture in the years since its initial performance in 1602. But how did this particular play become a phenomenon? In this section you will learn about the context within which Hamlet was conceived, written, and produced before it went on to become the cultural cornerstone it is today.
POLITICAL CONTEXT
During Hamlet’s composition and initial performance, Queen Elizabeth’s health was in decline. As she was relatively old with no clear successor, the country was on political high alert. Just like in Hamlet, ambitious men were vying for the throne, willing to kill or undermine as needed in order to gain power. Even the Earl of Essex, one of the Queen’s favourites, attempted to lead a rebellion against her. This turmoil manifested itself in Hamlet through the characters of Laertes, Hamlet, Fortinbras, and Claudius as each attempts to take control of the country through various means.
PHILOSOPHICAL CONTEXT
Though the country was in a state of political unease, it was in a state of cultural, artistic, and economic rebirth: the Renaissance. Among the various new philosophical movements that spread to England during this time, one of the most important to Shakespeare was humanism. Humanism explores human experience and rational truth with an emphasis on education. These themes abound in Hamlet. For instance, Hamlet spends most of the play plotting schemes to determine whether what the ghost has told him is true or not. As Hamlet feigns madness in order to do so, Polonius, Claudius, Gertrude, and Ophelia each in turn question what brought about Hamlet’s changed state. Early on, when Horatio is asked by Marcellus and Bernardo to question the Ghost, his greatest tool is his education. As a learned man, he knows latin and thus is equipped to exorcise the ghost if needed. Horatio and Hamlet are friends from the University of Wittenberg, and indeed the first time we see Hamlet, he is being convinced by his mother to put off his return to school.