Context

William Shakespeare

• Plays were sponsored by James 1 - the plays favour the king

• Globe Theatre was burnt down and rebuilt

• Father may have been involved in gunpowder plot - royal flattery

• Married Anne Hathaway when he was 18 and she was 26, supposedly he got her pregnant

Audience, actors and performances at the Globe Theatre

• Very close, stood or sat

• Bare, thrust stage with few props

• Limited costumes (Elizabethan)

• Performed afternoon (broad daylight)

• Every social class

Middle Gallery at the Globe Theatre

• Entry 2 pennies

• Middle class

Private Gallery at Globe Theatre

• Entry 3 pennies

• Couriers or noble families

• Cushions

Groundings at Globe Theatre

• Entry 1 penny

• Would clap or throw fruit depending on reaction to play

• Very rowdy crowd

Heavens at Globe Theatre

• 2 great pillars set on stage

• Underside of roof painted with sun, moon, stars, zodiacal

• Hung with black in tragedy

Source of Hamlet - Amleth

• Hero as fool

• Amleth feigns madness in order to to avenge his murdered father

• Subsequent versions of story and play introduced additional elements also found in Shakespeare

• Shakespeare choose to make murder of father a secret until the ghost reveals it later