Hamlet Context

Question 1

Genre

Answer 1

Tragedy

• Tragic hero suffers some form of harmartia (procrastination)
• Ends in denouement (death of hero)
• Audience supposed to feel catharsis at the end due to restoration of order

Question 2

Seneca’s Tragedies

Answer 2

Involves heavy bloodshed and murder
- Agamemnon (ghost of Thyestes)

Question 3

Shakespearean Tragedies

Answer 3

First tragedies were violent and cruel (Titus Andronicus), but work evolved focusing on elaborate exploration of the single mind and focused on individual suffering (Macbeth, Othello)

Question 4

Revenge Tragedy

Answer 4

Thomas Kyd’s - The Spanish Tragedy. Features a ghost that asked for his death to be avenged, name was Horatio

Question 5

James I

Answer 5

Publication of daemonologie. Witch trials were becoming a spectacle. Parliament passed the witchcraft act 1542. Warned against the dangers of black magic.

Question 6

Audience

Answer 6

Both fearful and fascinated by magic and the supernatural

Question 7

Elizabeth I succession

Answer 7

Elizabeth had no heir (children) and it was unclear who would inherit the throne after her death. She refused to name an heir which caused anxiety and unease. The throne couldn’t go to Mary of Scots but it went to her son James I.

Question 8

Denmark

Answer 8

By basing the play in Denmark, Shakespeare is able to discuss issues in England at the time whilst avoiding the bishops ban of 1599

Question 9

Mary of Scots

Answer 9

Like Gertrude, Mary didn’t undergo a proper mourning of her husband and proceeded to marry the man who thought to have murdered her husband.

Question 10

Women

Answer 10

Patriarchal, misogynistic society. Elizabeth I’s femininity.
“I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart of a King, and of a King of England, too” during the Spanish Armada 1588

Question 11

Shakespeare’s son

Answer 11

1596 : Hamnet died aged 11. Abandoned his son in infancy to pursue a career as a playwright.

Question 12

Excommunication

Answer 12

1570 : Pope Pius V excommunicated Elizabeth I for making England a Protestant nation. She was seen as an enemy of the Catholic state.

Question 13

Spy

Answer 13

Elizabeth I established a spy network in England. This was led by Sir Francis Walsingham.

Question 14

Elizabethan Medicine

Answer 14

Elizabethan doctors believed that certain personality traits stemmed from excess bodily fluids
- The Sanguine (air) : most desirable, thought to be enthusiastic, social and active
- The Choleric (fire) : excess of yellow bile, aggressive behaviour
- The Plegmatic (water) excess of phlegm, listless and unenergetic behaviour
- The Melancholic (earth) excess of black bile, depression

The 4 humours

Question 15

Renaissance

Answer 15

Seen as the rebirth of questioning and curiosity, going back to Classical ideas. Conflicts the Medieval Era.

Question 16

Body Politik

Answer 16

Body Politik was the belief that the virtue of the monarch reflected the attitudes of society.

Question 17

TGCOB

Answer 17

Natural order of everything