历史研究方法.pptVIP

Week Three Drama: Shakespeare’s Hamlet Historical and Biographical Approaches in Practice: Hamlet Queen Elizabeth’s advanced age and poor health leads to the precarious state of the succession to the British crown. Queen Elizabeth(1585) Hence, Shakespeare’s decision to mount a production of Hamlet, with its usurped throne and internally disordered state, comes as no surprise. Ophelia Shakespeares Hamlet was a remake of an already popular play, based in turn on an episode from the Dark Ages, the lawless, might-makes-right era that followed the collapse of Roman-era civilization. In the original legend, the prince was still a child when his father was murdered. And he learned of the murder from the beginning. Therefore he had to act insane in order to survive and wait for his revenge. The prince in this version was not a melancholic youth but a model of heroes. The Spanish Tragedy, a predecessor of Hamlet There is some ground for thinking that Ophelia’s characterization of Hamlet may be intended to suggest the Earl of Essex. The portrait of Earl of Essex Another contemporary historical figure, the Lord Treasurer, Burghley, has been seen by some in the character of Polonius. The Lord Treasurer, Burghley Knowing about eleventh-century Danish court life or about Elizabethan England is particularly germane to analysis of Hamlet. Danish supreme court in session. Photo: James Whitmore/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images, 1959 In Hamlet’s day the Danish throne was an elective one. The royal council, composed of the most powerful nobles in the land, named the next king. The third quarto of Hamlet (1605); a straight reprint of the 2nd quarto (1604) The custom of the throne’s descending to the oldest son of the late monarch had not yet crystallized into law. Hamlet, Gertrude and the ghost The charge of incest against the Queen Although her second marriage to the brother of her deceased husband would not be considered incestuous today by many civil and religious codes, it