Hamlet - Shakespeare

Question

Find 1 to 3 Speeches from Act 2, 3, or 4 and explain how Shakespeare uses this speech to target Elizabethan era audience, which is (cause and and effect) because the speeches will have a direct effect on the experience of the audience.

Additional explanations regarding possible topics for your body paragraphs: To make this as clear as possible, you must take your chosen speech(s) (that means one person talking...most likely a soliloquy) and explain how Shakespeare targets his Elizabethan audience (makes it interesting for his audience).

Examples of Elizabethan culture would be:

 Elizabethan culture,

superstitions,

hierarchy,

social,

religious,

political

economic realities.

This could be like a thesis listed above

Your thesis should discuss three aspects of the society, as they are portrayed by your chosen speechs, in order to attract interest from the audience.  

When stating your examples should have quotes (quotes--from your Hamlet soliloquy) that the speech(es) you chose are directly related to your thesis' directional sentences.

1. standard is usually 3 points and 3 examples, 2 from a speech and one from a historical reference

ALWAYS REMEMBER...the point when answering this question to to prove the things that happen in the play affect the enjoyment and reliability for that audience!

Answer 1

Hi Arv!

This is a great question with a lot to think about. To start developing your essay, I would suggest approaching it in two steps. Before choosing the speeches you want to focus on, I'd encourage you to first choose three specific ways Shakespeare targets Elizabethan audiences through the plot and issues he raises in Hamlet.

Consider the big issues in Hamlet. Your prompt lists several possible aspects you could choose to focus on in this list (superstitions, hierarchy, social, religious, political, economic realities.) Which three do you think are most significantly paralleled in Hamlet's Denmark?

Consider what you know about the circumstances in England at the time Shakespeare wrote Hamlet. Since Hamlet is a story about who should and does become King of Denmark, and whether something has been done corruptly to change how power is transferred, consider the parallels you can find in Elizabethan England at that time, and how those issues might concern audiences then who would be impacted by changes in the monarchy. What was happening with Queen Elizabeth? What worries about the monarchy might be weighing on the public then? What if something similar happened in England to the power struggles Shakespeare portrays in Hamlet? Identifying the real life struggles or anxieties of the audiences of the time first will help you focus on which speeches relate to those audience anxieties.

For example, Queen Elizabeth was nearing the end of her reign when Hamlet was written. She was unmarried and had no children, and she refused to name an heir. There was a lot of fear in England about what would happen when she died. Hamlet reflects a lot of the worries of the people of England that the country could be thrown into turmoil and great instability if there was conflict over who would become the next ruler of England. Shakespeare dramatizes the impact of this kind of battle over succession by showing what happens when succession goes wrong in Denmark. 

Once you have honed in on three specific issues audiences of the time were concerned about that are paralleled in Hamlet, you can more easily focus on the speech or speeches that address or relate to those issues. For example, which speech or speeches would resonate powerfully for Elizabethan audiences because they would connect to their own impending political fears about unjustified or rogue attempts to gain the throne following Elizabeth's death? What other issues on the list above are related to the worries on Elizabethans' minds? What devices does Shakespeare use to connect and reflect his audience's fears? What moral conflicts does Hamlet grapple with that could be parallel to those with which Elizabethan audiences also grappled?

I hope this helps! This sounds like a really cool essay prompt and Hamlet's issues over the peaceful transition (or not) of power and what it means for a society are just as relevant today as they were in Elizabethan times. Please let me know if I can be of any further help or if you have any additional questions!

Answer 2

Hi Arv,

I'd encourage you to find and collect the speeches or moments you found most impactful. To write dutifully and convincingly, try to view Hamlet as if you were in the audience yourself at that time. On speech may be about the effects of social and political order in relation to moral integrity; How would someone of a different class or social order receive each soliloquy? Then, uncover what it is that those are attempting to do, why you found them impactful, and especially what may connect some of the Elizabethan cultural examples you listed above. Try to break down and analyze anything that will help further your writing.

It's important to write an outline of your points, mainly to get a sense of how each part works in relation to the whole (your thesis). Once you've figured that out, the task is much easier to approach.

I'd be happy to help you further with your assignment during a private session. I hope this has helped.

Answer 3

It seems to me that there are two ways of tackling this prompt and looking at the ways in which Shakespeare tries to engage his audience. The first is to analyze a monologue’s references to specific beliefs and cultural touchstones of Elizabethan England. The second is to look at Shakespeare’s use of rhetoric and symbolism, sometimes in ways that are more far-reaching than only to an Elizabethan audience. I’ll try to do a bit of both.

Let’s examine the King’s monologue in Act III Scene III lines 40-76. In terms of the different types of culture you list, religious beliefs are the most relevant to this monologue. Claudius begins by comparing his situation to that of Cain in the Bible when he states his crime “hath the primal eldest curse upon’t, / A brother’s murder” (41-42). In Genesis, Cain commits the first murder by killing his brother Abel and is cursed to live as “a fugitive and a vagabond” (Genesis 4:12). By murdering his own brother, Claudius fears a similar kind of divine curse, and while he is not a literal fugitive, this monologue reveals his attempts to flee from spiritual retribution. He also imagines Judgement Day as a courtroom, but he contrasts it with the courtrooms of his (and Shakespeare’s) time by suggesting that while one may use the money or power gained from a crime in order to influence the court (“ And oft ‘tis seen the wicked prize itself / Buys out the law” (63-64)), this cannot be done before God. On Judgement Day, “the action lies / In his true nature, and we ourselves compelled, / Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, To give in evidence” (65-68). Since your prompt asks for a historical reference, here is a website which might be helpful: http://elizabethanmuseum.weebly.com/the-judicial-system.html#:~:text=The%20Judicial%20system%20in%20Elizabethan,of%20London%2C%201597%22).  Note the distinctions made between the prosecution’s attitudes towards commoners and nobility. Finally, Claudius describes his soul as a “limèd soul that struggling to be free / Art more engaged” (72-73). The word limèd refers to birdlime, a substance used by Elizabethan hunters to trap birds. This comparison between Claudius’s soul and a bird trapped with birdlime grounds Claudius’s spiritual predicament by using imagery which was commonplace to Shakespeare’s audience.

Shakespeare’s broader use of rhetoric and symbolism also makes this monologue more tangible to an audience. His constant use of rhetorical questions throughout the monologue urges the audience to try and answer them, and in this way, brings the audience into a closer emotional bond with Claudius. Hamlet does something similar in his “To be or not to be” monologue, and given that both speeches involve concern with what may happen after death, Shakespeare appears to suggest that these characters who are in direct conflict are more similar than they might seem. Shakespeare’s use of personification with the word “offense” is also quite telling. When he describes “the visage of offense” (51), and “Offense’s gilded hand” (62), he humanizes the crime, and therefore attempts to make it worthy of a certain degree of pity or even sympathy.  

Your prompt is fairly open-ended, but I hope that all of this gives you some ideas for how you might handle it. If you have any questions or need some additional help, feel free to contact me. Good luck!