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About the author

    Jennifer Bassett studied English and Latin at Exeter University and has worked as a teacher, trainer, editor, and materials writer. She is the Series Editor of the Oxford Bookworms Library, for which she has written the original stories One-Way Ticket, The President's Murderer, The Phantom of the Opera, and William Shakespeare, along with many adaptations. She is series co-adviser, with H.G Widdowson, of the Oxford Bookworms Collection. Jennifer has also written original stories for the English Today Readers and Storylines series.

Cultural background notes

• Background

  • England 1602      

  • Government

  • Religion

  • Education

  • Language

  • Drama

  • The Theatre

• William Shakespeare

• Approximate order of composition of Shakespeare's works

Background

England 1602

    When Shakespeare was writing Hamlet, most people believed that the sun went round the earth. They were taught that this was a divinely ordered scheme of things, and that for England God had instituted a Church and ordained a Monarchy for the right government of the land and the populace.

"The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there."

                                                  L.P. Hartley

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Government

    For most of Shakespeare's life, the reigning monarch was Elizabeth I. With her counselors and ministers she governed the nation (population five million) from London, although fewer than half a million people inhabited the capital city. In the rest of the country, law and order was maintained by the land-owners and enforced by their deputies. The average man had no vote and his wife had no rights at all.

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Religion

    At this time, England was a Christian country. All children were baptized, soon after they were born, into the church of England, they were taught the essentials of the Christian faith, and instructed in their duty to God and to humankind. Marriages were performed, and funerals conducted, only by the licensed clergy and in accordance with the Church's rites and ceremonies. Attendance at divine service was compulsory; absences (without good medical reason) could be punished by fines.

    By such means, the authorities were able to keep some check on the populace recording births, marriages, and deaths, being alert to any religious nonconformity, which could be politically dangerous and ensuring a minimum of orthodox instruction through the official "Homilies" which were regularly preached from the pulpits of all parish churches throughout the realm.

    Following Henry VIII's break away from the Church of Rome, all people in England were able to hear the church services in their own language. The Book of Common Prayer was used in every church, and an English translation of the Bible was read aloud in public. The Christian religion had never been so well taught before.

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Education

    School education reinforced the Church's teaching. From the age of four, boys might attend the "petty school" (French petite ecole) to learn the rudiments of reading and writing along with a few prayers. Some schools also included work with numbers.

    At the age of seven, the boy was ready for the grammar school (if his father was willing and able to pay the fees). A thorough grounding in Latin grammar was followed by translation work and the study of Roman authors, paying attention as much to style as to matter. The arts of fine writing were thus instilled from early youth.

    A very few students proceeded to university, these were either clever scholarship boys, or else the sons of noblemen. Girls stayed at home, and acquired domestic and social skills—cooking, sewing, perhaps even music. The lucky ones might learn to read and write.

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Language

    At the start of the sixteenth century the English had a very poor opinion of their language: there was little serious writing in English, and hardly any literature. Latin was the language of international scholarship, and Englishmen admired the eloquence of the Romans.

    They made many translations, and in this way they extended the resources of their own language, increasing its vocabulary and stretching its grammatical structures. French, Italian, and Spanish works were also translated and, for the first time, there were English versions of the Bible.

    By the end of the century, English was a language to be proud of. It was rich in synonyms, capable of infinite variety and subtlety, and ready for all kinds of word-play—specially the puns, for which Elizabethan English is renowned.

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Drama

    The great art-form of the Elizabethans was their drama. They inherited a tradition of play-acting from the Middle Ages, and this was reinforced in the sixteenth century by the reading and translating of the Roman playwrights. At the beginning of the century, plays were performed by groups of actors, all-male companies (boys acted the female roles) who travelled from town to town, setting up their stages in open places (such as inn-yards) or, with the permission of the owner, in the hall of a noble house.

    The touring companies continued, in the provinces, into the seventeenth century, but in London, in 1576, a new building was erected for the performance of plays. This was the Theatre, the first purpose-built playhouse in England. Other playhouses followed (including Shakespeare's own theatre, the Globe), and the English drama reached new heights of eloquence.

    There were those who disapproved, of course. The theatres, which brought large crowds together, could encourage the spread of disease and dangerous ideas. During the summer, when the plague was at its worst, the playhouses were closed. A constant censorship was imposed, more or less severe at different times. The Puritan faction tried to close down the theatres, but partly because there was royal favor for the drama, and partly because the buildings were outside the city limits— they did not succeed until 1642.

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The Theatre

    From contemporary comments and sketches most particularly a drawing by a Dutch visitor, Johannes de Witt—it is possible to form some idea of the typical Elizabethan playhouse for which most of Shakespeare's plays were written.

    Hexagonal in shape, it had three roofed galleries encircling an open courtyard. The plain, high stage projected into the yard, where it was surrounded by the standing "groundlings". At the back were two doors for the actors' entrances and exits, and above these doors was a balcony —useful for a musicians' gallery or for the acting of scenes "above".

    Over the stage was a thatched roof, supported on two pillars, forming a canopy—which seems to have been painted with the sun and stars for the "heavens". Underneath was space (concealed by curtaining) which could be used by characters ascending and descending through a trap-door in the stage.

    Costumes and properties were kept backstage, in the "tiring house". The actors dressed lavishly, often wearing secondhand clothes bestowed by rich patrons. Stage properties were important for defining a location, but the dramatist's own words were needed to explain the time of day, since all performances took place in the early afternoon.

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William Shakespeare, 1564-1616

    Shakespeare lived a very ordinary life. He was born in a small Midlands market-town (Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire), where his father was a glove-maker. He probably attended the local grammar school, and when he left school, he probably worked in his father's business, making and selling gloves. When he was eighteen he married a local girl, Anne Hathaway (who was already pregnant with Shakespeare's child). The baby—a daughter, Susanna was born in  1583, and in 1585 Shakespeare became the father of twins, Judith and Hamnei.

    Births, marriages, and deaths are the stuff of local records. But William left his family in Stratford, and went to make his fortune in London. He attached himself to a company of players under the patronage of the Lord Chamberlain, and followed their success: they later became the King's Men, and the leading London company. Shakespeare acted some small parts and he took a large share in theatrical management. His financial activities extended beyond the limits of the playhouse and, in the course of time, Shakespeare became a gentleman and a rich one too.

    With a lot of money and his own coat-of-arms, Shakespeare retired from London and went back to Stratford, where he bought the finest house in the town and lived there until his death in 1616. He was buried in the church of the Holy Trinity, where he had been baptized in 1564.

    Today pilgrims come to Stratford from all over the world to visit the grave in Holy Trinity Church, the birthplace in Henley Street, New Place, the house which Shakespeare bought in Chapel Street, and, above all, the Memorial Theatre on the banks of the river Avon. The man who lived such an ordinary life wrote the most extraordinary plays, creating a drama which is the glory of the English language.

    Shakespeare lived in exciting, and dangerous, times. He was still a boy when the Pope declared that the Queen of England was a bastard and absolved all Roman Catholics from their allegiance to her. There were plots to overthrow the monarchy and conquer the kingdom: Elizabeth was assailed by the Spanish Armada in 1588, and her successor, James I, was threatened by the Gunpowder Plot in 1605. The first London theatre was built in Elizabeth's reign, and the Authorized Version of the Bible was published for King James. Moralists, as always, worried about the state of the world and scientists argued about its position: was the earth the centre of the universe, as they had always been told, or was it only another of the sun's satellites?

    All these things—and not these alone—had their influence on Shakespeare's writing. His earliest dramatic efforts took English history for their subject: very patriotic audiences enjoyed watching the great moments of their own past, and Shakespeare was an intensely patriotic writer (who also had a shrewd sense of business). He went on to write clever, romantic comedies, imitating (and excelling) the manner of his university-trained contemporaries .

    Towards the end of the sixteenth century the mood darkened. It was a time of personal distress—one of Shakespeare's twins had died and, public anxiety. Earlier in her reign Elizabeth I had been honoured as the virgin Queen, but it later became a matter of concern that she would die and leave no heir to the throne. The theatre of this period favoured plays that were melancholic, bitter, and satiric. Shakespeare confronted social problems in his plays, he raised awkward questions, and, offered no easy answers. These "Problem Plays" were followed by the great tragedies, and then the "romances"—plays with a happiness which is lost, and a greater joy which is found.

    A few of Shakespeare's plays had been published before the dramatist died, but most of them were not available to readers until 1623, when two fellow-actors published all thirty-six plays (Pericles was omitted) in a massive folio volume. Some poems were printed during the author's lifetime. There were two long narrative poems on classical themes, and some sonnets which seem to tell of two love-affairs, but without giving away any secrets. The details of Shakespeare's personal life are hidden from us. Matthew Arnold uttered the frustration of all biographers when he wrote, in a sonnet "To Shakespeare": "We ask and ask—Thou smilest and art still."

    There is not even a trustworthy portrait of the world's greatest dramatist.

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Approximate order of composition of Shakespeare's works

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Language notes

1. We made lots of plans, but nothing ever came of them.

(我们做过很多打算，但都一无所成。)

The phrase come of here means to result from.
e.g. I doubt if any good will come of these peace initiatives.
The car crashed into a tree—that's what comes of buying cheap tyres!

2. Lots of church-going, and no singing or dancing.

（常去教堂，从不唱歌，也不跳舞。）

It's a fragmentary sentence, the complete version being "she does lots of church-going but no singing or dancing" or "there are lots of church-going in her life but no singing or dancing." Please note how, through contrast, the sentence effectively sketches out Anne's personality.

3. An actor had to be versatile.

 (演员要多才多艺。)

Versatile means capable of doing many things completely.

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Language notes

1.I knew that Will loved that boy of his—red-haired, bright as a new penny, full of life.

(我知道威尔爱他那个孩子——红头发、聪明活泼、充满朝气。)

The word bright, in collocation with "a new penny," carries multiple implications like "clever and intelligent," "cheerful and lively," and even "promising." Idioms like "bright as a new penny," or rather, "bright as a button," are abundant in English, e.g. pretty as a picture, strong as a horse, stubborn as a mule.

2.To be, or not to be—that is the question...

(生存还是毁灭，这是一个值得考虑的问题…… )

The link verb be can be interpreted in many ways, e.g. to live, to do it, etc.. That's also partly why the line has gained such universal popularity; people tend to quote this line when they are torn between two options.

3. ...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.

(……死了，睡去了；睡去了也许还会做梦。嗯，阻碍就在这儿：因为当我们摆脱了这一具朽腐的皮囊以后，在那死的睡眠里，究竟将要做些什么梦，那不能不使我们踌躇顾虑。)

Perchance means perhaps, rub the doubt or difficulty, shuffle off to get rid of. This mortal soil refers to trouble or turmoil of mortal life. Give us pause means to make us hesitate.

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