Renaissance Elements in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Mr. Bachir SAHED

M’sila University, ALGERIA
2nd Year: Literary Text (2017)
POLITICS: there were big political changes taking place during the time that
Shakespeare wrote Hamlet.
Act I scene v
THE GHOST
But know, thou noble youth,
The serpent that did sting thy father's life
Now wears his crown.
HUMANISM: a rise in humanist philosophy, self-belief, human worth and individual
dignity.
Act II scene ii
HAMLET
What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in
faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how
like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the
paragon of animals!
Act II scene ii
HAMLET
The play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
Act III scene i
OPHELIA
O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword;
The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
The observed of all observers, quite, quite down!
RELIGION: characters influenced by religious beliefs.
Act III scene i
HAMLET
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns,