Othello: Background



Shakespeare’s Hamlet: Background

• Written sometime between 1599 - 1601.

• It is considered a “Revenge Tragedy” and is based on Saxo Grammaticus’s (c.1150-1220) 13th C. Danish history Gesta Danorum which includes a character “Amleth.”

• Hamlet is Shakespeare’s first great tragedy: He writes Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, and others in the following years. His immediately preceding comedies are not funny and are called “problem plays.”

• Hamlet is by far the most often performed and best known Shakespearean play. A full production can last close to four hours.

• Hamlet’s age is debatable. Lines from the Gravedigger scene (V.i.) suggest that Hamlet is thirty.

Yet Hamlet is a university student at Wittenburg and seems not yet of ruling age; some scholars maintain he is therefore more likely 16 or 17.

Themes and Motifs

➢ Appearances vs. Reality. Numerous characters pretend to be something they’re not. This is a common theme/warning in many of Shakespeare’s plays: Don’t always take things at face value.

➢ Madness. What is madness? How can we tell if someone is or isn’t insane? How is it defined? Hamlet tells Horatio that he will put on an “antic disposition” feigning lunacy, yet maybe it’s not all an act…

➢ Indirect vs. Direct Action. Some characters seek to achieve their means in a round-about way (e.g. Hamlet, Polonius) while others are much more to the point and direct (e.g. Fortinbras). Is one technique more effective than the other? How do we choose?

➢ The role of Revenge. Three separate revenge plots are underway by young men: Fortinbras to avenge his father’s losses and death; Laertes to avenge his sister Ophelia’s death; and Hamlet’s efforts to avenge his father’s murder. What are the outcomes? Is revenge the best course of action or justified?

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David Tennant as Hamlet in the RSC production, 2006. (Filmed for TV)

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