William Shakespeare's Hamlet as a Personal Tragedy Rather Than a Political Tragedy

William Shakespeare's Hamlet as a Personal Tragedy Rather Than a Political Tragedy

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Watching Hamlet, an Elizabethan audience would feel many resonances

with their own world. England, like Denmark, was a troubled country

with much drama surrounding its political situation. Therefore, an

Elizabethan audience would probably have responded to Hamlet as

essentially a political tragedy. Through studying the contextual

background-surrounding Hamlet, we can understand their immediate

response, however, with the gift of hindsight, the 21st century

audience can see through the political aspect and analyse the personal

one. Therefore, as a member of a 21st century audience, can see both

sides that this argument proposes. Thus, posing a fundamental question

to us: How far is Hamlet a personal tragedy, and how far is it a

political one?

More educated members of an Elizabethan audience may even have seen

Hamlet as an attack on the monarchy and the worrying political

situation in England. It is arguable that Shakespeare intended to use

Hamlet to show his views without the possibility of being labelled

treacherous. From the very beginning of the play even the most

ignorant, unperceptive member of the audience would find it impossible

to ignore the similarities between Denmark and their own Elizabethan

England. As the play opens, Denmark fears a foreign invasion. In

England, although the Spanish Armada had been defeated in 1588, alarms

still persisted about a renewed invasion attempt.

Threats of war from abroad were compounded by threats from within.

Although seemingly stable, Claudius' Denmark, like Elizabethan

England, is dangerously insecure. Only moments after Claudius has

spoken of sorrows coming "not only single spies, but in battalions" a

"rabble" of ordinary citizens break in, demanding that Laertes become

King. England, towards the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign, had even

more powerful battalions of sorrows that threatened internal

stability.

There was constant anxiety about the problem of succession: who should

rule England when the monarch died? Whoever, succeeded would inherit a

dangerously discontented country. In Kurland's 'Hamlet and the