Hamlet & Elizabethan values and beliefs

docx

School

The University of Queensland *

*We aren’t endorsed by this school

Course

501

Subject

Arts Humanities

Date

Oct 30, 2023

Type

docx

Pages

Uploaded by DukeIronFly32

Elizabethan Values & Hamlet Shakespeare’s stage was a fascinating space for reflecting, exposing and challenging the values and attitudes of the Elizabethan audience. There is a particular tension in 1601 caused by uncertainty regarding the succession – ie Queen Elizabeth I was childless and had forbidden all discussion of an heir. The man who became King James I in 1603, James VI of Scotland, had calmly accepted the execution of his mother, Mary Queen of Scots, for conspiracy against Elizabeth, in 1587. Historical parallels: To some extent Denmark stands for Scotland, the “northern” Kingdom. There are some uncomfortable parallels between Gertrude and Mary Queen of Scots in that each marries the murderer of their previous husband (Lord Darnley murdered by Bothwell). Moreover, Bothwell was reputedly far less handsome-manly than Darnley, and Darnley was murdered in his garden. Even although Bothwell was acquitted, there was a popular uprising against Mary, who was forced to abdicate in favour of James, her 1 year old son. (See Andrew Hadfield, 2003). You may wish to read up more on Mary – Darnley was in fact her 2 nd husband whom she met while mourning her first. Also, she is finally executed when Lord Burghley, Elizabeth’s chief advisor, intercepts treacherous letters to Mary (“lawful espial”). Purgatory and Protestantism Shortly after her accession in 1558, Elizabeth confirms England as a Protestant nation by the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity, the latter mapping out the main beliefs of the English church. Whilst Elizabeth did not wish to spy into people’s souls, there were limits to how freely Catholicism could be practised – mainly because of the political threats posed by conspiracies against Elizabeth. In terms of beliefs, Catholics could not attend Mass, and priests celebrating Mass would be executed. The Church of England saw the Communion Service as a memorial only. More haunting however was the loss of many traditional and popular practices for mourning and praying for the dead. Martin Luther believed that faith alone brings salvation thus doing away with any need or space for purgatory (and doing away with many priestly abuses like selling indulgences – time off purgatory). Trouble is, if you don’t have purgatory, why pray for the dead? Note that the play is full of “maimed” (mangled) burial rites, and the lack of proper “closure” causes great harm for Hamlet (Gertrude’s crocodile tears) and Ophelia (“hugger-mugger” disposal of Polonius), and Laertes (Polonius, and “questionable” rites for Ophelia as a suspected suicide. Shakespeare is in a way haunting the Elizabethan audience both by depicting Catholic burial/ memorial practices – as he does in many of his history plays – but also by showing the dehumanising impact of not having proper processes for mourning the dead. Even more haunting, of course, is making a Ghost in purgatory the catalyst for the action. What is doubly challenging, for sceptical Horatio as For Hamlet, is that these two witnesses are both studying at the Protestant university of Wittenberg which has done away with purgatory: “There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in thy philosophy,” Hamlet tells Horatio (perhaps an older student and mentor) after seeing the Ghost. Hamlet and the audience are flung back on considering the after-life consequences of their choices, as demonstrated when Hamlet chooses not to kill Claudius at prayer – “Why this is hire and salary and not revenge!”

Looking deeper, note Hamlet’s joke about the Diet of Worms when confronting Claudius in Act 4. Hamlet is joking about how a “king may pass through the guts of a beggar” but also alluding to the special hearing of 1521 where Luther told local bishops, “I cannot, I will not recant” – regarding his attacks on the Catholic church. And also note how Laertes and Hamlet are careful to exchange forgiveness and escape purgatorial consequences for their violent actions. For further reading on this, see Stephen Greenblatt’s Purgatory . Regicide, Tyrannicide & The Divine Right of Kings When might it be justified to kill an anointed king? Two years prior to Hamlet , audiences had been engaged by the murder of Julius Caesar by Brutus – “an honourable man” – and his co-conspirators. In an interesting moment of intertextuality, Polonius describes having played Caesar in his acting days – to which Hamlet offers a withering pun about “killing so capital a calf.” The Tudor monarchs, of whom Elizabeth was the last, were anointed when crowned so as to emphasise their ‘divine right” to rule; so the enacting of any murder of an ‘anointed” king was dangerous material for the playwright, to be carefully negotiated. Of course Claudius is a usurper and this might justify tyrannicide – the killing of a tyrant – but the case for killing Claudius would not have been quite that simple for the Elizabethans for 2 main reasons: - Claudius claims for himself “such a divinity” which “hedges about” his person, most notably in the near rebellion by Laertes that he clearly reflects the kind of “hedge” constructed diplomatically and skilfully by Elizabeth (and subsequently James). - Even if Claudius is not the legitimate King, he runs an early modern court with political skill, eg talking down young Fortinbras’s invasion as well as the Laertes threat. With Polonius as his main advisor and spy providing a parallel with the recently dead Lord Burghley (d 1598), the mirroring of Elizabeth’s court and politics would have been obvious, for example in the encouragement of a spy network – ‘lawful espials.” It is important for the Elizabethan audience that Claudius is “justly served” rather than stabbed in private revenge - The most pressing problem for the Elizabethan audience in 1601 was the succession. The likeness between Gertrude and Mary is discussed above; what might also have been apparent was the way the inscrutable Gertrude reflects the Elizabeth who is likely to welcome a politician (Burghley) into her private bedroom for advice – and would that advice have been good for the state? Both Denmark or Norway could stand for Scotland – the Northern Kingdom. Perhaps there is some parable in the way that a new dynasty takes over the monarchy of Denmark at play’s end – pointing to the inheritance of the English throne by James VI of Scotland,. son of Mary Queen of Scots – Elizabeth’s cousin, and enemy Court and climbers and “the Mirror of Princes” Elizabeth had grown extremely reliant on Burghley (William Cecil), and such reliance was probably unwise if Polonius is partly based on the ageing Burghley. She is also notoriously vulnerable to dashing favourites like the Earl of Essex (Robert Devereaux, d 1601). In depicting the Polonius machinations, and the slimy or stupid obedience of characters like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and Osric, Shakespeare is surely calling attention to the veniality and superficiality of courtly life. Ros and Guild use the notion of many lesser beings feeding on the life of the King as if it were a positive image, but Hamlet more nearly hits the likely audience response in calling them mere “Sponges’ – disposable stooges.

Even while Hamlet is a very young man – members of the Elizabethan upper classes attended university between age 14 & 18, the impact of his mother’s infidelity and his father’s death-murder, jolts him into the kind of cynicism about courtly life which you might expect from Shakespeare himself: “How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me the uses of this world…” See also the “To be or not to be” soliloquy and all the greasy, sycophantic and backstabbing behaviour that a “bare bodkin” could spare Hamlet. If court was a hall of mirrors, one role of plays performed at court was like that of the Fool (Yorick), ie to be the Mirror for Princes – in other words, a literary text designed to give guidance and insight to the monarch. Hamlet himself sees his role as “setting a glass” before his mother (A3, S4) so that she might see the ‘inner workings” of her soul, and the Mouse-Trap functions to similar effect. Shakespeare is therefore offering a wonderful justification for his own craft in so far that Elizabethan court is, by implication, liable to the same kinds of corruption by ear-poison (spin) as Elsinore; the play offers the means to reach beyond the reflective glitter of court to ‘catch the conscience’ of the major players in national politics.

Your preview ends here

Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version