Hamlet: Historical Context

The Renaissance:

The 15th-century Renaissance brought with it a new interest in the study of human experience and
awareness. Hamlet was written in the early 17th century around 1600 or 1601 and first performed in
1602. By this time, the Renaissance had spread to other European countries, and ideas about our ability
to fully understand the human experience became more skeptical. Scholars and artists purported that
the human understanding of the world was based on appearance, and that it was only with great
difficulty (if at all) that humans could see beyond these appearances in order to see the “real.”
Shakespeare’s Hamlet explores this struggle. Characters constantly face difficulty in finding the truth
about others, whether it be their intentions, their true characters, or even their sanity.

Protestant Reformation:

The main action of Hamlet takes place in Denmark, a largely Protestant nation at the time of the play’s
composition. Though Roman Catholics believe in a state of purgatory—where souls go after death to
atone for wrongdoings—the Protestants broke with a number of Catholic teachings, including the
existence of purgatory, in the Protestant Reformation. This may explain why Hamlet is hesitant to accept
the ghost’s claims that he is tormented until his life’s crimes are “purged” away.

Thus, Hamlet is in many ways a product of the Reformation, in which Protestants broke away from the
until-then dominant Catholic Church, as well as the skeptical humanism of late Renaissance Northern
Europe, which held that there were limits on human knowledge. Hamlet's constant anxiety about the
difference between appearance and reality, as well as his concerns about and difficulties with religion
(the sinfulness of suicide, the unfairness that killing a murderer while the murderer is praying would
result in sending the murder to heaven) can be seen as directly emerging from the breaks in religion and
thought brought on by the Reformation and Renaissance humanist thought.