1. Hamlet by William Shakespeare Introduction

2. General Background 1600 – Sometime around 1600 a.d., William Shakespeare, already a successful playwright, wrote Hamlet. 1601 – The play was probably first performed in 1601 on the stage of the Globe Theater on London’s Bankside. First Quarto, the Second Quarto, and the First Folio – Three published versions of the play – Second Quarto of 1604 – considered the “official” version 1623 – First Folio was published seven years after Shakespeare’s death.

3. Shakespeare’s Sources for Hamlet A story of revenge – Saxo Grammaticus Hamlet is based on a twelfth-century story about an early Prince of Denmark, Amleth. The tale, by Saxo Grammaticus, was published in Latin in 1514, but most scholars believe that Shakespeare read a 1570 French version of the story by Francois Belleforest. The old story has many similarities with Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

4. Shakespeare’s Sources cont. In the original story, Amleth’s father is King of Denmark. He defeats the King of Norway in a duel, but is murdered by Feng, his own brother. Feng quickly marries the queen, Gerutha, Amleth’s mother. In pursuit of revenge, Amleth feigns madness (In Danish, Amleth meant ‘simpleton’ or idiot). But his language in such a mixture of insanity and cleverness that he is tested in various ways.

5. Theatrical Influences Shakespeare’s production of Hamlet is also influenced by: Tragedies of the Roman dramatist, Seneca Thomas Kyd’s hugely popular play The Spanish Tragedy Play, now lost, which is known as the Ur-Hamlet (Ur means early) – a play of Hamlet that existed at least 10 years before Shakespeare’s Hamlet, but Shakespeare transformed the genre as well as the character of Hamlet.

6. The Revenge Tragedy Seneca – Roman playwright (4 b.c. – 65 a.d) 1581- A collection of Seneca’s tragedies was published in 1581. Seneca found material for his tragic dramas in Greek mythology. Many revenge plays imitated his example.

7. The Senecan Revenge Tragedy Features A ghost appears calling for revenge. Revenge dominates characters’ motives, and provides dramatic suspense. Revengers use exaggerated and hyperbolic language. Characters descend into madness. The use of a play-within-a play. Much tragic loss Five-part structure: Act I – ghost appeals for vengeance Act II – the revenger plots revenge Act III – the confrontation of avenger and victim Act IV – vengeance is prevented Act V – revenge is completed

8. Metafiction/Metadrama Metafiction as a play or has occasion to It is a kind of fiction that comments on the very devices of fiction it employs. It usually involves irony and is self-reflective. Metadrama is similar. It is drama that calls attention to itself as a play or has occasion to comment on its own actions and devices. These devices are most apparent in the play-within-the play in Hamlet but also subtlety throughout the play as a whole in the constant juxtaposition of appearance vs. reality as well as the many faces of Hamlet, himself.

9. Major Themes Revenge Incest Subordination of women Theater Political Corruption

10. Shakespeare’s Language (stylistic devices) Imagery Doubling (pairing of characters and situations) Repetition Verse vs. prose Soliloquy (abounds in this play)

11. Shakespeare’s language cont. Antithesis – the opposition of words or phrases against each other (anti-thesis) Examples: “To be or not to be:” “I must be cruel only to be kind.” “Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned.” Antithesis powerfully expresses conflict through its use of opposites, and conflict is the essence of all drama. In Hamlet conflict occurs in many forms. Claudius vs. Hamlet, revenge vs. justice, appearance vs. reality, son vs. mother etc. Antithesis intensifies that sense of conflict, and embodies its different forms.

12. Shakespeare’s language cont. Apostrophe - Turning one's speech from one audience to another. Most often, apostrophe occurs when one addresses oneself to an abstraction, to an inanimate object, or to the absent. (tool of hyperbole) Example: “O God, God/How (weary), stale, flat, and unprofitable/Seem to me all the uses of this world.” (I.ii.136-138)