Shakespeare was born in Stratford-on-Avon in central England. It has beautiful scenery, mountains, rivers, forests and plains, and is called "Happy England". Shakespeare spent a happy childhood there. Every year, he can watch the tour of the London Theatre Company and sow the seeds of dramatic art in his young mind. He went to grammar school (technical secondary school), learned some Latin and Greek, and came into contact with some classical literature. /kloc-When I was 0/4 years old, I had to drop out of school to make a living because my family went bankrupt. It is said that he is a butcher's apprentice, a primary school teacher and helps his father do business. He witnessed landlords and businessmen forcibly "pen" sheep, taking away farmers' land and displacing them; Witnessing workshops make individual craftsmen and small businessmen unemployed and bankrupt. In the environment of the big fish eat small fish, it is not unusual for his family to go bankrupt. His ancestors were engaged in agriculture and his father was engaged in glove business. Bankruptcy made him feel very painful. There is a squire named Sir Lucy in the town. He is rich and powerful. In addition to "enclosure" to raise sheep, he also enclosed the mountain forest as a deer park for deer hunting and fun. At that time, young people in Britain liked to hunt in the mountains with guns, and Shakespeare, who was active by nature, was no exception. Once, he hunted a deer, and Sir Lucy insisted that he stole it from him and whipped him. He was so angry that he wrote a poem, posted it at the door of the squire and wandered to London alone. At that time, it was illegal for young people in Britain to wander. If they are caught, they will be whipped, their ears cut off and branded. So they have to find some temporary jobs on the road. They may have joined a touring troupe and played clowns. At the beginning of the sonnet 1 10, he said, "Alas, I used to run around pretending to be a clown for everyone to enjoy." He arrived in London around 1585. At that time, the British capital had just established a theater in the suburbs. He entered a theater to do odd jobs, looked after horses for the audience and contacted people from all walks of life. Later, he became a hired actor. 1590 started to write plays and was promoted as a shareholder actor, so as to communicate with college students who love drama, expand their knowledge and accept humanistic ideas. And make friends with the court nobles, so as to be familiar with the life of the court and the upper class. He is keen, observing, analyzing and studying social life, and has accumulated rich creative materials. In more than 20 years, he wrote two long poems, 154 sonnets and 37 plays. His plays mostly borrow biographies of historical figures and folk stories that people like to see and hear, and are full of realistic life breath and flesh and blood; Coupled with gorgeous literary talent, fresh style and progressive ideas, it won applause from the audience. His income became rich, he bought huge houses and real estate in his hometown, and obtained the hereditary "heraldic" gentleman status for his family. At the age of 44, he returned to his hometown, where he lived a quiet and comfortable life for eight years. At that time, he was just a famous actress and was despised by people. At that time, there was no atmosphere for writing biographies. Of course, no one would write biographies for a "player". Until Nicola Rowe published The Biography of Shakespeare in 1909, today we can only speculate on his life based on some legends and fragmentary historical materials. Ben Jonson, a junior colleague (1572~ 1637), knew him, and published a collection of Shakespeare's plays in 1623, that is, seven years after Shakespeare's death, calling him "the soul of the times" in his inscription, saying that he "belongs not only to one era, but to all eras". This inscription is the most important document about Shakespeare's comments left by Shakespeare's contemporaries.
Shakespeare lived in an era known as the Renaissance, that is, the late Middle Ages in Europe. Because the feudal main class in medieval Europe rejected the civilization of ancient Greece and Rome and started a new stove; Monks monopolized the right to education, practiced obscurantism, advocated asceticism, told the oppressed working people to "be ignorant and obey the emperor", told them to yearn for the sky with all their heart and give up secular rights, and were exploited and squeezed by the next feudal lords and monks. In the late Middle Ages, the productive forces gradually developed, resulting in the city and the citizen class, the predecessor of the bourgeoisie, demanding the development of capitalist elements and industry and commerce. The discovery of new shipping routes and America expanded commodity circulation and overseas plunder, which accelerated the speed of primitive accumulation of capital. Therefore, people's horizons have expanded and they are dissatisfied with theocracy, obscurantism and asceticism in the Middle Ages. At this time, the famous Byzantine city Constantinople fell (1453), and many scholars fled to western Europe with ancient Greek cultural relics. The brilliance of classical culture surprised people in western Europe. They began to study Greek and called for the revival of classical culture, including materialistic philosophy, natural science and literature and art that reflected real life. Oppose the old ideas and culture of the idealism of the Catholic church at that time. At that time, the new thought and new culture were characterized by "humanitarianism", that is, putting people first, affirming that people have the right to enjoy secular happiness and opposing theocracy, asceticism and obscurantism. The progressive literature and art at that time was literature and art that carried out humanistic thought, and Shakespeare was the peak of new literature and art at that time.
Shakespeare's plays can be divided into three periods: the early period (1590 ~ 1600), mainly historical plays and comedies; In the middle stage (160 1 ~ 1607), tragedy dominated; The later period (1608 ~ 16 12) was dominated by legendary dramas. Hamlet is one of the tragedies in his mid-term creation.
Hamlet, written around 160 1, is Shakespeare's most important work. First, because it is the most mature work of the author's dramatic art; Second, because it can best represent the author's thoughts and show the mentality of humanists during the crisis; In this play, the author showed a clear subjective attitude towards the political situation at that time. Its storyline is like this:
Danish Prince Hamlet received a humanistic education at the University of Wittenberg in Germany. Because his father died suddenly, he returned to the motherland with a deep heart; Soon, his mother married the new king, his uncle, which made him even more embarrassed. The new king claimed that Lao Wang was killed by a poisonous snake while sleeping in the garden. When the prince was puzzled, the ghost of Lao Wang appeared in front of him; Tell him "Viper" is the new king and let him avenge his father. The prince is a humanist and thinks that this kind of revenge is a problem of the whole society. He said he had a responsibility to reorganize Gan Kun. Considering all aspects of the problem, he is afraid of leaking secrets, ghosts and fakes, falling into the trap of bad people, and being upset and unhappy, so he has to pretend to be crazy. At the same time, the traitor also suspected him, sent people everywhere to spy on his words and deeds, and even used the prince's two old classmates and his lover. The prince took advantage of the troupe's performance in the palace to adapt an old play plotting to kill his brother and let them perform to test his uncle. Before the play was finished, my uncle fidgeted and left in a hurry. In this way, the traitor's guilty conscience is completely exposed, and he is even more afraid of his privacy exposure. Bologna, the commanding minister, put forward a plan to let his mother call the prince, let him talk in his private room, and hide behind the curtain to eavesdrop; During the conversation, the prince found someone behind the scenes and thought it was a traitor to the king, so he stabbed him to death with his sword. The treacherous king sent him to England by killing him with a knife, and asked two students who were watching him to bring a secret letter asking the king to kill the prince when he landed. But the prince was very alert and changed the secret letter halfway, instead, he let the king of England kill the two classmates. He jumped on the pirate ship and came back from danger. Only after I came back did I know that my lover, Mr. Phil Jia, was crazy and drowned. The traitor king used Laertes to plot to kill the prince with the poisoned sword and the poisoned wine in the sword. As a result, both Ha and Lei were poisoned by swords, their mother drank poisoned wine by mistake, and the traitor king was stabbed to death. The prince asked his friends to tell the world the whole story of his behavior and bury it in a military ceremony.
This plot is based on the historical events in Denmark in the 8th century and reflects the political situation in Britain at the turn of16-17th century. As the author said through the mouth of the protagonist, "it is the epitome of this era." He said: "This is an era of upside-down chaos. Alas, I am unlucky enough to take on the responsibility of rectifying Gankun! " He said that the world is "a big prison with many prisons, cells and dungeons;" Denmark is the worst one. "We are talking about Denmark, not Britain. Because Britain was the most typical country in primitive accumulation of capital at that time, beggars and vagrants were everywhere in the country, and the imperial court also issued bloody decrees prohibiting begging and vagrancy, which made them desperate. In addition to hunger and cold, they were whipped, their ears cut off, branded and hanged. It's hell on earth!
Hamlet, a tragedy with rich and vivid plots, secretly revealed an important idea: in the late Renaissance, the central government stabilized and turned into absolute monarchy. The king broke away from the bourgeoisie, acted arbitrarily and monopolized the interests; Politically, it violated the progressive measures, made the old feudal forces make a comeback, intrigued against each other, and made the country filthy. In this chaotic era, bourgeois humanists see it in their eyes and hate it in their hearts; The working people are more vulnerable to exploitation and oppression by feudalism and primitive accumulation. In the process of displacement, they have a tendency of "thinking about change when they are poor", but they are worried and confused. At such an impending moment, that is, on the eve of the bourgeois revolution in 1648, Hamlet, as a representative of humanists, was determined to rise up, destroy the traitor king and reorganize Gankun, but he felt that "dark clouds overwhelmed the city and wanted to destroy it"; I feel that I have a heavy responsibility and I am hesitant. In the process of thinking hard, I felt sad and fell into depression. From this perspective, this tragic conflict coincides with what Engels pointed out in his letter to La Salle: "This constitutes a tragic conflict between the inevitable requirement of history and the fact that this requirement cannot be realized."
Hamlet, the hero, is a humanist at the end of the Renaissance. He always thinks that man is "what a great masterpiece! What a noble reason! What a great power! What a beautiful instrument! What an elegant move! How like an angel! What a wise god! The essence of the universe! The spirit of all things! " However, after the great changes, he lost interest in the world. Born in the court of an enlightened monarch, he was educated by humanism from primary school to university, with lofty ideals, and became a model youth with new ideas in China and a representative of the new era expected by progressives. But after this huge blow, I can't find a way to reorganize Gan Kun for the time being, so I pretend to be crazy for the time being so as not to startle him. His lover, Mr. filia, sighed after pretending to be crazy: "Ah, what a noble heart! Courtiers' eyes, scholars' comments, soldiers' swords, a beautiful flower that the whole country expects; The mirror of the times, the elegant model of interpersonal relationship and the center of the world's attention have fallen irretrievably! "
Hamlet's character is melancholy and indecisive, but it is not static. He is carefree, cheerful, frank, enterprising and full of energy, just like the air in summer morning. When his father died, his mother married, and the bad guys were in power, the whole country became a prison. He hated bloodthirsty, dissolute, cruel, treacherous and rebellious thieves. He was bent on destroying the traitor king and the whole evil forces, reorganizing the plans and conditions that Gan Kun could not reorganize at the moment, and fell into anxiety and anxiety before becoming depressed. The first and second acts describe his mental journey from hard thinking to melancholy; From the beginning of the third act, he wrote that he gradually overcame his melancholy mood, and he realized that "the red-hot brilliance of perseverance was covered with a layer of gray by careful thinking, and the great cause would retreat against the current in one thought and lose the meaning of action" (three acts and one scene). It is ok to think carefully, but don't be timid and lose your motivation. He made up his mind to take action, rehearse the drama and prove the crime of betraying the king. His character changed from indecision to decisiveness, from melancholy to liveliness. A series of actions, such as assassinating ministers behind the scenes, rewriting secret letters, jumping on pirate ships, dueling, stabbing the king, are no longer melancholy. When he died, he trusted his close friends to publicize his stories and wishes. His will made Fortinbras inherit his throne because of his resolute character.