SHAKESPEARES WORLD – HISTORY AND SOCIETY

At the end of Henry 8^th reign it can be considered as the transition into the new modern world. As this is the time that when the New World – America was discovered, printing came about, Protestant became the more prominent religion in Britain with the monarch being the head of the church and a new class was created in society – the middle class, with more people being educated. This created the Renaissance or enlightenment era, an era of creativity, from Greece, with the philosophy of life being questioned.

Henry 8^th changed a previously Catholic society into a Protestant one. The main trigger for the change was that he wanted to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, however the pope would not allow this divorce so as a way of achieving it Henry changed to a Protestant and the country changing to Protestant as well, and along side that made the monarch, himself, the head of the Protestant church in England. Although Britain was originally a Catholic country some people wanted to end the hegemony and the rules of Catholicism. Henry also saw this as an opportunity to move some of the wealth from the Catholic Church into the country.

After Henry’s death there was four monarchs in the space of eleven years: Edward 6^th who was ten years old, so he had a lot of people to run the country for him and ran it as a Protestant country, he died in 1553. After he died, Lady Jane Grey came in as the next monarch, although not next in line to the throne, Jane was a Protestant and when Edward became ill precautions were put in place to make Jane the next Queen as Mary was a Catholic and they didn’t want the country to go back to Catholicism. However Lady Jane Grey was only Queen for seven days and then was beheaded by Mary’s men and Mary came into power and her reign began as Queen Mary or Bloody Mary. In Mary’s reign the country was turned back to a Catholic country and in her reign there was a lot of murder and she got quite bad a reputation, for example she had 300 heretics burnt at the stake. After Mary died, her younger sister Elizabeth came into power, although she reverted the country back to a Protestant state, out of all the monarch’s over the last few years she tried to keep the peace the most. Elizabeth also started the secrete service. Throughout these eleven years the constant shift in religious power created a sense of instability in the country and danger and death was felt around the country and the countries peoples.

This is really important that we understand the state of the country that Shakespeare was born into and when he was writing, as that would influence his plays that he would put on. In our society now there isn’t censorship on the media so in contemporary theatre, playwrights have freedom to write and produce plays with whatever content in them, and able to say whatever they want. However when Shakespeare was writing he had to be very careful with what he put into his plays as if he offended the monarch or showed himself against the religious aspects of the country at that point in time, he would be arrested or in those times even killed. This meant that when he was writing he had to be very aware socially of what was going at the time as he wouldn’t want to put his own life at risk. Also for Shakespeare this was a way of making money and he would have had to write plays that would please the audiences and would pull in large audiences to the theatres so that he would make money and be able to live and feed his family.

NEW WORLDS

Even though when the British went to the new worlds there was many benefits for them as they got new foods, medicines and cultures, they often didn’t understand the natives of the country they had found and this is shown in Shakespeare’s naming of what one could call the Noble Savage: Caliban (although some may argue that Ariel is more of a Noble Savage, especially in our performance of The Tempest.) Caliban sounds like cannibal that comes from Carrien or Caribbean. This shows how the British thought that those from the Caribbean and most likely those from African or Indian countries were cannibals. This came from the British not understanding their culture and not knowing or seeing them as people but as animals, as they thought them uncivilised, because they know nothing of or understood their world or ways of life. This was so thought that a book in 1603 was written called “Of Cannibals” by Montaignt, this shows how it was widely accepted and normal in the society that they lived in. Also the timing of the book being written and published links in to the writing of The Tempest, suggesting that Shakespeare could have got some of his influences from it. This is supported by Gonzalo’s speech in Act 2, Scene 1, which is of great similarity to a passage of writing in the book. This is of Gonzalo speaking about a utopia that he wants to find and to live in, where there is no private state or labour but equality for everyone. This is very interesting as to the characterisation of Gonzalo as his opinions are political and sociological opinions that have been around though out the years and are still relevant today. This allows us to contextualise the play and the characters in a political way as we see Gonzalo present a more liberal political view, where as it could be argued that Prospero shows an extremist right wing political opinion and could be seen as a dictator over the island. This could have contextualise the play in a political point of view as the conflicts in the political world are constant throughout history and as Shakespeare and most writers write in reaction to their society at the time, it could show how he is writing about the politics of the time, which is still relevant in our society and to our audiences today.

Thought this was too good not to be on my blog :) .... but on a more educational note:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYfM0RFZ5cs

 (sorry it wouldn't load as a video)