Shakespeare's Hamlet - WordPress.com · Shakespeare’s works were collected and printed in many editions in the century following his death. By the early 18th Century (1700s), his

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About the Man

&

Context for the Play

English 621

2008

From Cliffsnotes and Sparknotes 5/13/2008 1

5/13/2008 2From Cliffsnotes and Sparknotes

The most influential

writer in all of English

literature, William

Shakespeare was born in

1564 to a successful

middle-class glove-maker

in Stratford-upon-Avon,

England.


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Shakespeare

attended

grammar school,

but his formal

education

proceeded no

further.


In 1582 he married an

older woman, Anne

Hathaway, and had three

children with her.

After he left for London,

she embarked on a

moderately successful film

career in Hollywood.


Around 1590 he left his

family behind and

traveled to London to

work as an actor and

playwright.


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Public and critical success

quickly followed, and

Shakespeare eventually

became the most popular

playwright in England

and part-owner of the

Globe Theater.


His career bridged the

reigns of Elizabeth I

(1558–1603) and

James I (1603–1625),

and he was a favorite of

both monarchs.

James granted

Shakespeare’s company

the greatest possible

compliment by bestowing

the title of King’s Men.


Wealthy and world-

famous, Shakespeare

retired to Stratford and

died in 1616 at the age of

fifty-two.


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Shakespeare’s works were

collected and printed in

many editions in the

century following his

death.

By the early 18th Century

(1700s), his reputation as

the greatest English-

language poet was well

established.


The fascination with his works led to a fierce curiosity about Shakespeare’s life.

However, the absence of biographical information has left many details of Shakespeare’s personal history shrouded in mystery.


Some people have concluded

that Shakespeare’s plays were

really written by someone else

(Francis Bacon and the Earl of

Oxford are the popular

candidates).

Support for this claim is

circumstantial and the theory is

not taken seriously by many

scholars, including one bald one

in this room.From Cliffsnotes and Sparknotes 5/13/2008 12

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Without credible evidence

to prove otherwise,

Shakespeare must be

viewed as the author of

the 37 plays and 154

sonnets that bear his

name.

The legacy of this body of

work is immense.From Cliffsnotes and Sparknotes 5/13/2008 13

5/13/2008 14From Cliffsnotes and Sparknotes

Shakespeare’s shortest

and bloodiest tragedy,

Macbeth tells the story of

a brave Scottish general

(Macbeth) who receives a

prophecy from a trio of

sinister witches that one

day he will become king

of Scotland.


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5/13/2008From Cliffsnotes and Sparknotes 16

Consumed with ambitious thoughts and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and seizes the throne for himself.

He begins his reign wracked with guilt and fear and soon becomes a tyrannical ruler, as he is forced to commit more and more murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion.


The bloodbath

swiftly propels

Macbeth and Lady

Macbeth to

arrogance, madness,

and death.

Macbeth was most likely

written in 1606, early in

the reign of James I, who

was from Scotland.

It was probably first

performed in July.

Why July?


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James was a patron of Shakespeare’s acting company (The King’s Men).

Of all the plays Shakespeare wrote under James’s reign, Macbeth most clearly reflects the playwright’s close relationship with the king.



In focusing on Macbeth, a figure from Scottish history, Shakespeare paid homage to his king’s Scottish lineage.

Macbeth is not Shakespeare’s most complex play, but it is certainly one of his most powerful and emotionally intense.

As was common,

Shakespeare borrowed

ideas for his plays from

stories from earlier

literary works.

If he was so great, why

did he have to borrow

ideas?


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In Shakespeare’s time, an

acting company could not

expect a playwright to write

in a vacuum .

Because new plays were

commissioned weekly,

required playwrights to get

together and share ideas.

English playwrights at this time freely borrowed material from one another and shared criticisms and edits.

Macbeth definitely presents Shakespeare’s work, but also the contributions by actors, managers, prompters, and so forth, who all knew what parts of a play to leave in or take out.


Macbeth was a real king of eleventh-century Scotland, whose history Shakespeare had read in the Chronicles of Holinshed, to which he referred for many of his other historical dramas.

In Holinshed’s account,

Banquo and Macbeth

combine to kill King

Duncan after winning his

favor in a battle against

the Danes.


The original story is full

of wonderful details that

show the cunning of the

Scots and Macbeth, who

slaughtered an entire

Danish army not by brute

force, but by cunning:

first mixing a sleeping

potion and sending it, like

the Trojan horse, as a gift

to the enemy army.


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Once they were asleep, Macbeth was able to kill them easily.

Presumably from this incident, Shakespeare derived his idea of having Lady Macbeth administer a sleeping potion to the guards of King Duncan’s chamber.


In Holinshed’s account, however, although we learn that Macbeth’s wife is ambitious to become queen, Lady Macbeth does not feature as an accomplice.

Instead, Banquojoins forces with Macbeth in killing Duncan. As we shall see later, this particular confederacy of murderers presented Shakespeare with a problem.



Holinshed did not simply provide Shakespeare with a good

story.

Macbeth contains many examples of imagery and language

that Shakespeare borrowed directly from his source, a practice

common to all writers.

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Shakespeare's Hamlet - WordPress.com · Shakespeare’s works were collected and printed in many editions in the century following his death. By the early 18th Century (1700s), his