HamletHamletTo Be or Not to Be

Queen Elizabeth I (1533 - 1603)Queen Elizabeth I (1533 - 1603)

• Reestablished the protestant church founded by her father Henry VIII

• Brought England into its “golden age.”

• Reigned 1558-1603

James I (1566-1625)

• Originally king of Scotland--loved a good ghost story.

• Famous genre of drama during his time: Jacobian Revenge Tragedies

• Reigned 1603-1625

William Shakespeare 1564-1616William Shakespeare 1564-1616

• Lived under both rulers is Elizabethan and Jacobian

• Shakespearean plays are as popular today as they were some 400 years ago, when they were considered "modern."

Average Shakespearean Average Shakespearean AudienceAudience

• Other favorite kinds of entertainment: bear baiting and cock fighting

• Many were not highly educated (royal court about 1.5%)

• peasants or groundlings a staple

The Revenge TragedyThe Revenge Tragedy

• A crime gone unpunished!

• Inescapable fate, often brought on by long-lived curse passed on from father.

• Supernatural Manifestations

• Exotic poisons

• Madness

• Sword fights Bloody, bloody, bloody!

Hamlet: Prince of DenmarkHamlet: Prince of Denmark

• Written and done in 1600

• First published in 1603

• A Revenger Tragedy (the “Western” of the Elizabethans and Jacobites)

• Story not original to Shakespeare

Major CharactersMajor Characters• HAMLET (a good guy)

– Prince of Denmark, outmaneuvered from throne by his uncle

• CLAUDIUS, (a bad guy)– King of Denmark, Hamlet’s uncle

• HORATIO, (a very good guy) – friend to Hamlet (in first act with soldiers)

• GERTRUDE, (good but not too insightful)– Queen of Denmark, and mother to Hamlet

More Important CharactersMore Important Characters• POLONIUS, (an “iffy” kind of guy)

– advisor to the king, political animal, maybe silly, spies of children, maybe loves them too

• LAERTES, (a good guy but hot headed)– son to Polonius

• OPHELIA, (a good maiden)– daughter to Polonius

• Hamlet Sr, (a dead guy: unknown)– Hamlet’s dad back as a ghost (or demon?)

Other CharactersOther Characters

• ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN, (the “iffy dual,” or a clueless couple)– Friends of Hamlet’s youth but too busy trying

to make their own fortune at his expense.

• MARCELLUS, and BARNARDO, (good if scared guys)– officers of the watch who first see ghost

• Two CLOWNS, grave-diggers

The Complexities of HamletThe Complexities of Hamlet

• Why does it take so long for him to act?– (Is murder ever justified?)

• Is the Ghost true or a demon?– (Catholic or Protestant?

• What is the mental state of Hamlet himself?– (Neurotic by depression or Steady Handed in

oppression?)

Hamlet’s Mental Condition?

Sad and a wee bit insane

Sad and coldly calculating

Mythic References within Mythic References within the play’s textthe play’s text

• Remember that in Shakespeare’s day the stories from ancient Greece were the “fairy tales” of the average person.

• “So excellent a king, that was, to this, Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother That he might not beteem the winds of heaven Visit her face too roughly” (Act I Scene 2).

• Hyperion was one of the 12 the children of Gaia (Earth) and Ouranos (the Heavens) known as the Titans. He is the Titan god of the sun and the Titan of the east. He is also the father of the lights of heaven.

• The Satyrs are deities of the woods and mountains. They are half human and half beast; they usually have a goat's tail, flanks and hooves. While the upper part of the body is that of a human, they also have the horns of a goat.

• Also Satyrs were often depicted as roguish but faint-hearted; subversive and dangerous, yet shy and cowardly. In Greek Art they are shown as old and ugly and are known as licentious creatures.

• Hamlet compares his father to the Titan Hyperion while also comparing his Uncle Claudius to the Saytr. Hyperion was the lord of the light. Light can be a symbol of what illuminates the mind, enlightenment and knowledge, for wisdom.

• “Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him As if increase of appetite had grown By what it fed on; and yet, within a month— Let me not think on't! Frailty, thy name is woman— A little month, or ere those shoes were old With which she follow'd my poor father's body Like Niobe, all tears—why she, even she— O God! a beast that wants discourse of reason Would have mourn'd longer—married with my uncle, ”

• Niobe was the Queen of Thebes, married to Amphion the city's king. They had fourteen children known as the Niobids. Niobe foolishly bragged about her seven sons and seven daughters to Leto and mocked the goddess, who herself only had two children, Apollo and Artemis. All the children and the father were killed. Niobe was inconsolable so the gods turned her into a stone, but even then she continued to weep. Clearly Gertrude lacks this deep feeling.

Mythic HeroMythic Hero

• “. . .married My father's brother- but no more like my father/ Than I to Hercules." (I, ii, 152-153).

• Hamlet is expressing the wrongness of his mother’s choice while also making his own uncertainty about himself clear.

With the Tragedian's of the CityWith the Tragedian's of the City

• In Act 2, scene 2 Hamlet asks for a speech based on the epic poem The Aeneid in which Aeneas tells Dido about the fall of Troy.

• The “Player King” starts off describing how the cruel Pyrrhus attacks the old King and the grief of Hecuba, the queen.

• The interesting point here is that Pyrrhus is avenging the death of his own father Achilles.

• He was in fact historically remembered as overtly cruel.

Just Some SuggestionsJust Some Suggestions

• Don’t try to understand all the language– You will catch enough as it goes along

• Keep your eyes open for how the director of this presentation has decided to deal with the problems.

• Feel Free to Weep. . .it is a tragedy.

END

Site CitedSite Cited

• Mythology in Hamlet Wiki – remarkable specific wiki: http://mythologyinhamlet.wikia.com/wiki/Mythology_in_Hamlet_Wiki