Revenge: Here we sit down to see this mystery, And act as chorus in this tragedy.

1. Revenge: Here we sit down to see this mystery,And act as chorus in this tragedy. • Thomas Kyd: The Spanish Tragedy [I.i (90-91)]

2. Renaissance Theatre • Reasons for disappearance of medieval plays: • Church had been weakened by internal conflict • The rise of universities across Europe had led to new ways of seeing the world • Reformation challenged the Catholic church's authority • Emerging revival of interest in classical culture led to Renaissance: • Decline of feudalism • Growth of cities • Revived interest in humanist ideals • Era of curiosity • Geographical expansion • Scientific experimentation • Philosophical inquiry

3. Elizabethan Theatres • The Theatre and The Curtain – first purpose built theatres in London • Owned by James Burbage, father of actor Richard Burbage • “Tiring house” – place to change costumes • Lord Chamberlaine's Men – Shakespeare’s company • Globe Theatre

4. Hollar’s drawing of the Globe Theatre (detail)

5. Visscher’s “Long View of London”

6. Visscher’s “Long View of London” (detail)

7. Johannes de Witt’s drawing of the Swan Theatre (as copied by Arend van Buchel)

8. New Globe Theatre

9. The stage

11. Gentlemen’s rooms 2nd and 3rd level

12. Backstage curtains

13. Heavens

15. Blackfriars Theatre

16. Elizabethan Theatres • Philip Henslowe’s inventory of props and scenic pieces includes: rocks, three tombs, hell mouth, cage, pair of stairs, two steeples, the “City of Rome,” bay tree, small altar, bedstead, moss bank, chain of dragons, cloth of the sun and moon… • Musicians on third floor • Sound machines in attic?

17. No women allowed on stage • Therefore: few roles for women in Shakespeare’s plays • Many plays in which women dress as men Will Kemp

18. First Folio of 1623, edited by John Heminges and Henry Condell

20. Shakespeare Facts? • The works: 37 plays (38 including Edward III)? • Baptized at the parish church in Stratford on April 26, 1564 • Bond dated 27 November, 1582 to secure a pre-marriage contract between Shakespeare ("Shagspere") and Anne Hathaway • Children: Susanna, Hamnet and Judith (twins) • His acting in Ben Jonson’s plays • Testament • Burial on April 25, 1616, two days after his death

21. Shakespeare Facts? • References to Shakespeare’s works: • Robert Greene: “An upstart crow beautified with our feathers, that, with his Tyger’s heart wrapt in a player’s hide supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you, and being an absolute Johannes Factotum is in his owne conceit the only Shake-scene in a countrie.” • References by Ben Jonson (who berates him for verbal excesses—”would he had blotted out a thousand [lines]”) and John Webster (who considered him inferior to some second-rate playwrights of the period) are mostly critical of his writing.

22. The Usual Suspects... • Francis Bacon • Christopher Marlowe • Queen Elizabeth I • William Stanley, the Earl of Derby • Edward de Vere,the Earl of Oxford William Stanley, Earl of Derby Francis Bacon Queen Elizabeth I Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford

23. Shakespeare Myths – The Oxford Debate • The “Oxfordians” argue: • Shakespeare’s six signatures look ill-written • His wife and children were illiterate • No reference to his profession in any of the documents • No mention of his literary remains in his will • Why did he retire so young, in 1604, in the midst of his triumphs? • Aristocrats weren’t supposed to dabble in lowly art of playwriting, so Oxford had to assume a pen name (from a second-rate actor with the Lord Chamberlain’s men) • Many references to de Vere’s great promise as a poet • Oxford travelled to all of the places mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays, incl. a meeting with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern • His homosexuality is reflected in the sonnets addressed to a “fair youth”

24. Shakespeare Myths – The Oxford Debate • Oxford died in 1604, and Shakespeare was referred to in past tense after 1604, when he was supposed to have retired in Stratford • Oxford had the training and background one would expect from the evidence of the plays; he was connected to senior officials and the Queen • Oxford’s literary output (poetry) received more dedications than anyone else • A ‘spear-shaker’ was a term to describe an invisible person • His crest shows a lion shaking a broken lance (Ben Jonson about Shakespeare: “He seems to shake a lance/As brandish’t against the eyes of ignorance.”) • Etc., etc.

26. Hamlet: I have heardThat guilty creatures sitting at a playHave by the very cunning of the sceneBeen struck so the soul that presentlyThey have proclaimed their malefactions • Hamlet II:ii 585-590

27. Seneca’s 5 point model • EXPOSITION (someone - often a ghost - explains the action leading up to the start of the drama) • ANTICIPATION (the avenger explains the methods he will use in order to achieve revenge) • CONFRONTATION (between avenger and intended victim - both sides conceal intentions) • PARTIAL EXECUTION (avenger suffers a temporary setback) • COMPLETION

28. The Origins of Hamlet • Saxo Grammaticus - Historia Danicae (c.1100) - no ghosts • Francoise de Belleforest - Histoires Tragiques (c. 1500) - still no ghosts • Thomas Kyd?

29. The Ur-Hamlet • English Seneca read by candle-light yields many good sentences, as Blood is a begger, and so forth; and if you entreat him fair in a frosty morning, he will afford you whole Hamlets, I should say handfuls of tragical speeches. - Thomas Nash Epistle To Menaphon (1588) • The ghost which cried so miserably at the theatre, like an oyster-wife, Hamlet, revenge! - Thomas Lodge Wit’s Miserie (1596) • Henslowe’s record of a performance at Newington Butts (it brought in only eight shillings) in 1594 • “My name’s Hamlet revenge: - thou hast been at Paris Garden, hast not?” - Thomas Dekker Satiromastix (1602)

30. Hamlet (1602) • When does the play close? Is it when the dialogue stops and the lights fade? No - there follows applause and then the curtain call, which the actors rehearse. When does the play begin? Is it when the first sentry walks out on the stage? Or has the play already begun in our mind’s eye as we enter the theatre? No. In our society Hamlet has, for complex social and historical reasons, always already begun. Terence Hawkes

31. The Ghost • Horatio: A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, • The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead • Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets: • As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood, • Disasters in the sun; and the moist star • Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands • Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse: • Hamlet I.i 114-120

32. The Ghost • MARCELLUS • It faded on the crowing of the cock. • Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes • Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, • The bird of dawning singeth all night long: • And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad; • The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, • No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, • So hallow'd and so gracious is the time. • Hamlet I:i 159-162

33. The Ghost • Hamlet:The spirit that I have seen • May be the devil: and the devil hath power • To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps • Out of my weakness and my melancholy, • As he is very potent with such spirits, • Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds • More relative than this: the play 's the thing • Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king. • Hamlet II:ii 596-603 • Ghost • I am thy father's spirit, • Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night, • And for the day confined to fast in fires, • Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature • Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid • To tell the secrets of my prison-house, • I could a tale unfold whose lightest word • Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, • Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, • Thy knotted and combined locks to part • And each particular hair to stand on end, • Like quills upon the fretful porpentine: • But this eternal blazon must not be • To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list! • If thou didst ever thy dear father love-- • Hamlet I.v 9-21

34. The Ghost • Ghost • Do not forget: this visitation • Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose. • But, look, amazement on thy mother sits: • O, step between her and her fighting soul: • Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works: • Speak to her, Hamlet. • Hamlet III: iv 111-116

35. All an act?

36. Hamlet: Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself,As I perchance hereafter shall think meetTo put an antic disposition on,That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,With arms encumber'd thus, or this headshake,Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,As 'Well, well, we know,' or 'We could, an if we would,'Or 'If we list to speak,' or 'There be, an if they might,'Or such ambiguous giving out, to noteThat you know aught of me: this not to do,So grace and mercy at your most need help you, Swear.Hamlet I:v 169-176

37. HAMLET Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not 'seems.''Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,Nor customary suits of solemn black,Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage,Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,That can denote me truly: these indeed seem,For they are actions that a man might play:But I have that within which passeth show;These but the trappings and the suits of woe.Hamlet I:ii 76-86

38. HAMLET I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; Godhas given you one face, and you make yourselvesanother: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, andnick-name God's creatures, and make your wantonnessyour ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hathmade me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages:those that are married already, all but one, shalllive; the rest shall keep as they are. To anunnery, go. Hamlet III:i 143-147 HAMLET Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellowof infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hathborne me on his back a thousand times; and now, howabhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims atit. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I knownot how oft. Where be your gibes now? yourgambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not onenow, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, lether paint an inch thick, to this favour she mustcome; make her laugh at that. Hamlet V:i HAMLET Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge;You go not till I set you up a glassWhere you may see the inmost part of you. Hamlet III:iv 19-21

39. The Mousetrap or The Murder of Gonzago

41. HAMLET Ay, so, God be wi' ye;Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERNNow I am alone.O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!Is it not monstrous that this player here,But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,Could force his soul so to his own conceitThat from her working all his visage wann'd,Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,A broken voice, and his whole function suitingWith forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!For Hecuba!What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,That he should weep for her? What would he do,Had he the motive and the cue for passionThat I have? He would drown the stage with tearsAnd cleave the general ear with horrid speech,Make mad the guilty and appal the free,Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeedThe very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,And can say nothing; no, not for a king,Upon whose property and most dear lifeA damn'd defeat was made. Hamlet II:ii

42. Who are the actors? • Hamlet - pretends to be mad • Horatio - pretends to be ignorant of this • Rozencrantz and Guildenstern - pretend to be Hamlet’s friends • Claudius - pretends to be a noble king and (later) a good father • Polonius - pretends to be a friend • Ophelia - forced to pretend to feel nothing for Hamlet • Laertes - pretends to be a noble opponent • The Ghost?

43. On the stage before us is a play of false appearances in which an actor called the Player-King is playing. But there is also on this stage, Claudius, another Player-King who is a spectator of this player. And there is on stage, besides, a prince who is a spectator of both these Player-Kings and who plays a player’s role himself. And around these Kings and that prince is a group of courtly spectators - Gertrude, Rozencrantz, Guildenstern, Polonius and the rest - and they, as we have come to know, are players too. And lastly there are ourselves, an audience watching all these audiences who are also players. Where, it may suddenly occur to us to ask, does the playing end? Which are the guilty creatures sitting at the play? When is an act not an act? Maynard Mack The World of Hamlet

44. Symmetry? • The Mousetrap/Murder of Gonzago - not one play but two • First information about Elsinore is an account of a duel between Old Hamlet and Fortinbras the Elder - the play also ends with a duel • King Hamlet poisoned by Claudius - Claudius poisoned by Hamlet • First half, Hamlet sets traps for Claudius - second half, Claudius sets traps for Hamlet • Hamlet wants revenge for his father’s murder - Hamlet becomes a victim Laertes after murdering his father • The court of Elsinore is seen four times (interrupted on all four occasions - the Post-Wedding, The Play, Ophelia’s Funeral, The Duel) • A single poisoning opens the play - The inner play shows an act of poisoning twice - the final scene shows four poisonings