Some Critical Studies about why did ShakespearewroteHamlet!
Shakespeare wrote the tragedy "Hamlet" between 1599 and 1601. The play is set in
Denmark, and tells the story of Prince Hamlet, who tries to get revenge on his uncle,
because he murdered his father. Many people think that Shakespeare based Hamlet on the
legend of Amleth.
There was also an old Elizabethan play named "Ur-Hamlet", which has now been lost. This is thought to be the biggest source for Shakespeare.
Some believe that Shakespeare may have been inspired by the death of his own son 'Hamnet' when writing 'Hamlet.' His son was only 11 years old when he died, and as his only son, Shakespeare was probably deeply upset. Suggestions have been that the grief and loss that Shakespeare was feeling was put into the tragedy. If so, it is peculiar that he would have expressed these feelings four or five years after Hamnet's death but not in such plays as Henry IV Part I or The Merry Wives of Windsor which he wrote shortly afterwards. In all likelihood the connection with Shakespeare's son is entirely based on the coincidental similarity of the names Hamlet and Hamnet.
Question & Answers
The first thing you need to understand is that we know very little about Shakespeare personally. There are no documents, letters, diaries, manuscripts or other personal papers existing that tell us what he was thinking, what kind of a person he was, or what inspired him to write his plays. We do know quite a bit about the Elizabethan time period, about the company he worked with, and about theatre at that time and that can help us answer general questions, but specific questions about Shakespeare's thought processes or what influenced him to write his plays are simply guesswork. There are no facts and nothing to tell us the answers to these questions.
That said....
1. Why did Shakespeare write Hamlet? What was his inspiration?
We don't know why Shakespeare wrote Hamlet at the time he did. But the play was based on an earlier play which was, in itself, based on the early stories of the History of Denmark by Saxo Grammaticus. Some people think that parts of the play were inspired by the death of Shakespeare's young son, Hamnet, several years earlier, but that seems unlikely, since the basic story existed in various forms for many years before.
2. How was the conflict in Hamlet related to conflicts during Elizabethan times?
Since the story itself is based on Danish history, it does not specifically pertain to Elizabethan times. And the conflicts in Hamlet are personal ones, that almost everyone can relate to in one way or the other, rather than political or historical ones. But Shakespeare always included current political and social commentary in his plays, and Hamlet is no different. There were references in Hamlet to contemporary politicians, to the Essex Rebellion, to the existance of young Children's Theatre companies that competed with Shakespeare's own company. Since Queen Elizabeth I was old at the time the play was written (she would die only three years later) and was unmarried with no children, the questions raised in the play about the succession to the throne were very relevant to the times Shakespeare lived in.
3. What were the differences between the performance of Hamlet and the written play?
We have no way of knowing the answer to this question. There are no eyewitness accounts of any performance of the play and no original manuscript to tell us if changes were made during the performance. In fact, there is no original manuscript to tell us if any of the printed editions (several quite different Quartos and Folios) we consider "original" were in fact exactly the play that Shakespeare wrote. So there is no way to judge whether a performance was different from the written play, since we have neither.
4. How are females portrayed in Hamlet?
Shakespeare portrayed women in his plays as real women - good, bad, old, young, strong, weak, everything that real women are. He was amazing in that. In Hamlet there are two women - Gertrude the Queen, and Ophelia, the daughter of the counselor to the King. As with all plays, and especially Shakespeare's, there is no one way to interpret the characters. In some productions they are portrayed as weak, fragile, subject to the men in the play. In others they are portrayed as major characters, strong women with minds of their own. Ophelia is portrayed as going mad after the death of her father and the exile of Hamlet, who she loves, and then she dies by falling into a stream and drowning, either by accident or as a suicide, depending on your interpretation. Gertrude marries her brother-in-law less than two months after he kills her husband, the King. Whether they were lovers while she was still married to the King or not is a question of interpretation as is whether she knew about the murder or was part of it.
5. Are there morals in Hamlet to be learned?
I'm sure there are, but what they are will be different for everyone. Read the play and decide for yourself.
6. How did the public react to Hamlet? What was there opinion on it?
Again, we have no way of knowing what the public's reaction or opinion was about Hamlet. However it continued to be performed for years so we can assume that they enjoyed it.
7. What is some criticism on Hamlet?
Not sure what you mean by criticism. There are many, many books and articles written on Hamlet (that is called Literary Criticism) and they are both positive and negative and everything in between. I couldn't even begin to
8. Can Hamlet be performed in a modern setting? What are the advantages and disadvantages?
Any play can be reset into a modern setting. Whether it works or not depends on the production and how the director uses the setting and whether s/he maintains the themes, plot and characters and doesn't lose them in the process. It can be a good way to help young people related to the play. But I personally think that they can relate to it as it is written. The disadvantages are that it was written about a medieval kingdom and alot of the dialogue doesn't make too much sense in a modern setting without alot of cutting and rearranging.
9. Why is Hamlet considered the most famous /best of Shakespeare's play's?
It isn't by everyone. Some people think King Lear is Shakespeare's greatest play. Others have other favorites such as Romeo and Juliet or Othello or Macbeth. Some people think that his most popular, most done plays are some of the comedies - A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing. There is no one definitive "best" or "most famous" of Shakespeare's plays. Hamlet is considered certainly one of his best, if not his best, because it is the only one of his plays that is a true psychological study - a play of thoughts and emotions and motivations, and philosophy rather than overt action or comedy like many of the other plays. It also has some of his very best poetry and prose and some of his very best known lines. Shakespeare was a brilliant writer who wrote his characters as though they were real people. He understood humanity in a way that other playwrights of his day had no clue of. And Hamlet was the play that best epitomized this genius and his understanding of the minds and hearts of humanity.
10.What did Shakespeare think of Hamlet? If there is some record of that.
We have absolutely no idea what Shakespeare thought of Hamlet or anything else because, as I said before, there is no personal records of his at all that still exist, so far as we know.
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