The Influence of the Renaissance in Shakespeare's Work

by Lee Jamieson
Updated January 28, 2020

It’s very easy to think of Shakespeare as a unique genius with a

singular perspective on the world around him. However,
Shakespeare was very much a product of the radical cultural shifts
that were occurring in Elizabethan England during his lifetime.
When Shakespeare was working in the theater, the Renaissance
movement in the arts was peaking in England. The new openness
and humanism are reflected in Shakespeare’s plays.

The Renaissance in Shakespeare's Time

Broadly speaking, the Renaissance period is used to describe the

era when Europeans moved away from the restrictive ideas of the
Middle Ages. The ideology that dominated the Middle Ages was
heavily focused on the absolute power of God and was enforced by
the formidable Roman Catholic Church.

From the 14th century onward, people started to break away from
this idea. The artists and thinkers of the Renaissance did not
necessarily reject the idea of God. In fact, Shakespeare himself may
have been Catholic. The Renaissance cultural creators did,
however, question humankind’s relationship to God.

This questioning produced enormous upheaval in the accepted

social hierarchy. And the new focus on humanity created new-
found freedom for artists, writers, and philosophers to be inquisitive
about the world around them. They often drew on the more human-
centered classical writing and art of ancient Greece and Rome for
inspiration.

Shakespeare, the Renaissance Man

The Renaissance arrived in England rather late. Shakespeare was

born toward the end of the broader Europe-wide Renaissance
period, just as it was peaking in England. He was one of the first
playwrights to bring the Renaissance’s core values to the theater.
Shakespeare embraced the Renaissance in the following ways:

1) Shakespeare updated the simplistic, two-dimensional writing style

of pre-Renaissance drama. He focused on creating human
characters with psychological complexity. Hamlet is perhaps the
most famous example of this.

2) The upheaval in social hierarchy allowed Shakespeare to explore

the complexity and humanity of every character, regardless of their
social position. Even monarchs were portrayed as having human
emotions and were capable of making terrible mistakes. Consider
King Lear and Macbeth.

3) Shakespeareutilized his knowledge of Greek and Roman classics

when writing his plays. Before the Renaissance, these texts had
been suppressed by the Catholic Church.
Religion in Shakespeare's Time

Elizabethan England endured a different form of religious

oppression than that which had dominated the Middle Ages. When
she took the throne, Queen Elizabeth I forced conversions and
drove practicing Catholics underground with her imposition of the
Recusancy Acts. These laws required citizens to attend worship in
Anglican churches. If discovered, Catholics faced stiff penalties or
even death.

Despite these laws, Shakespeare did not appear to be afraid to write

about Catholicism nor to present Catholic characters in a favorable
light. His inclusion of Catholicism in his works has led historians to
hypothesize that the Bard was secretly Catholic.
Catholic characters included Friar Francis ( "Much Ado About
Nothing"), Friar Laurence ("Romeo and Juliet"), and even Hamlet
himself. At the very least, Shakespeare’s writing indicates a
thorough knowledge of Catholic rituals. Regardless of what he may
have been doing secretly, he maintained a public persona as an
Anglican. He was baptized in and buried at Holy Trinity Church,
Stratford-upon-Avon, a Protestant church.

Source :  https://www.thoughtco.com/renaissance-
shakespeares-time-2984986
 
 Hamlet : A tragedy Play by William Shakespeare

                 Royal Shakespeare Theatre, 1984

PLOT SYNOPSIS
The ghost of the King of Denmark tells his son Hamlet to avenge his
murder by killing the new king, Hamlet's uncle. Hamlet feigns
madness, contemplates life and death, and seeks revenge. His
uncle, fearing for his life, also devises plots to kill Hamlet. The play
ends with a duel, during which the King, Queen, Hamlet's opponent
and Hamlet himself are all killed. 
Late at night, guards on the battlements of Denmark's Elsinore
castle are met by Horatio, Prince Hamlet's friend from school. The
guards describe a ghost they have seen that resembles Hamlet's
father, the recently-deceased king. At that moment, the Ghost
reappears, and the guards and Horatio decide to tell Hamlet.

Claudius, Hamlet's uncle, married Hamlet's recently-widowed

mother, becoming the new King of Denmark. Hamlet continues to
mourn for his father's death and laments his mother's lack of
loyalty. When Hamlet hears of the Ghost from Horatio, he wants to
see it for himself. 

Elsewhere, the royal attendant Polonius says farewell to his

son Laertes, who is departing for France. Laertes warns his sister,
Ophelia, away from Hamlet and thinking too much of his attentions
towards her. 

According to his plan, Hamlet begins to act strangely. He rejects

Ophelia, while Claudius and Polonius, the royal attendant, spy on
him. They had hoped to find the reason for Hamlet's sudden change
in behaviour but could not. Claudius summons Guildenstern and
Rosencrantz, old friends of Hamlet to find out what's got into him.
Their arrival coincides with a group of travelling actors that Hamlet
happens to know well. Hamlet writes a play which includes scenes
that mimic the murder of Hamlet's father. During rehearsal, Hamlet
and the actors plot to present Hamlet's play before the King and
Queen.  

At the performance, Hamlet watches Claudius closely to see how he

reacts. The play provokes Claudius, and he interrupts the action by
storming out. He immediately resolves to send Hamlet away. Hamlet
is summoned by his distressed mother, Gertrude, and on the way,
he happens upon Claudius kneeling and attempting to pray. Hamlet
reasons that to kill the King now would only send his soul to
heaven rather than hell. Hamlet decides to spare his life for the time
being.  

Polonius hides in Gertrude's room to protect her from her

unpredictable son. When Hamlet arrives to scold his mother, her
hears Polonius moving behind the arras (a kind of tapestry). He
stabs the tapestry and, in so doing, kills Polonius. The ghost of
Hamlet's father reappears and warns his son not to delay revenge or
upset his mother. 
Hamlet is sent to England, supposedly as an ambassador, just as
King Fortinbras of Norway crosses Denmark with an army to attack
Poland. During his journey, Hamlet discovers Claudius has a plan
to have him killed once he arrives. He returns to Denmark alone,
sending his companions Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their
deaths in his place. 

Rejected by Hamlet, Ophelia is now desolate at the loss of her

father. She goes mad and drowns. 

On the way back to Denmark, Hamlet meets Horatio in the

graveyard (along with a gravedigger), where they talk of the chances
of life and death. Ophelia's funeral procession arrives at the very
same graveyard (what luck!). Hamlet confronts Laertes, Ophelia's
brother, who has taken his father's place at the court. 

A duel is arranged between Hamlet and Laertes. During the match,

Claudius conspires with Laertes to kill Hamlet. They plan that
Hamlet will die either on a poisoned rapier or with poisoned wine.
The plans go awry when Gertrude unwittingly drinks from the
poisoned cup and dies. Then both Laertes and Hamlet are wounded
by the poisoned blade, and Laertes dies. 

Hamlet, in his death throes, kills Claudius. Hamlet dies, leaving

only his friend Horatio to explain the truth to the new king,
Fortinbras, as he returns in victory from the Polish wars.
Source :
https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-
shakespeare/shakespedia/shakespeares-plays/hamlet/

The Famous Soliloquy of Hamlet :  " To Be or Not To Be "

Hamlet's Soliloquy, Act 3. Scene I

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
 The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveler returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sickled o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

Analysis of Hamlet's Soliloquy, Act 3. Scene I

Hamlet's third soliloquy is the famous 'to be, or not to be' speech.
Once again Hamlet is confused and contemplating death. He is
wondering whether life or death is preferable; whether it is better to
allow himself to be tormented by all the wrongs that he considers
'outrageous fortune' bestowed on him, or to arm himself and fight
against them, bringing them to an end. If he were to die, he feels
that his troubles, his 'heart-ache', would end. Death is still
something that he finds appealing, 'tis a consummation devoutly to
be wished'. Yet, even death troubles him, as to die might mean to
dream and he worries about the dreams he might have to endure,
'in that sleep of death what dreams may come'.
He is still contemplating suicide and considers how, by taking one's
own life, with 'a bare bodkin', or dagger, one might avoid 'whips and
scorns' and other hard-to-bear wrongs. However, he refers to death
as 'the dread of something' in the 'undiscover'd country', and this
shows that he worried about how his soul might be treated in the
afterlife.

Source :
 https://owlcation.com/humanities/Shakespeares-Hamlet-
What-do-the-soliloquies-reveal-about-Hamlets-true-feelings-and-
thoughts

He decides that fears concerning the puzzling and 'dreadful'

afterlife, together with the conscience, cause people to bear the
wrongs inflicted during their life on earth, rather than commit
suicide and risk offending God. The fear of arriving somewhere
unknown and frightening—possibly the torments of hell—is proof
that 'conscience does make cowards of us all'. People, he concludes,
tend to think things over, lack resolve and do nothing.

When Hamlet is remarking on such people, he is actually talking

about himself. He believes that his uncle is wicked and deserves to
die. He believes that it is he who should end his uncle's life. But he
is afraid of going to purgatory, as the spirit claiming to be his father
has done. He is afraid of risking hell by committing suicide. He is
afraid of doing the wrong thing, and is inactive, partly because of
his conscience. He is afraid of the potential consequences that his
religious upbringing—an upbringing that would have been the norm
—claim would come if he commits suicide.
Hamlet continues to feel frustrated and angry in his grief, and his
feelings of impotence have returned. Although Claudius's response
to the play indicated guilt, Hamlet still does not know what the
right thing to do is—right in the eyes of God, that is.