Tag Archives: Hamlet

Finding Machiavelli And His Ideas In The Plays Of Shakespeare, by David Hurley

Posted on September 5, 2010 by hirohurl

Eighty-five years after his death in 1527, Niccolo Machiavelli made his first appearance on the London stage in the prologue to Christopher Marlowe’s play, The Jew of Malta, which was first performed in 1592. This lecture looks at how the Italian “Machiavelli” was transformed into the English “Machiavel” and how both the Machiavel and Machiavellian ideas were presented in the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Continue reading →

Posted in Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon, Henry V, John Foxe, John Roe, Machiavelli, Richard III, Shakespeare, The Jew of Malta, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Spanish Tragedy, Thomas Kyd | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Did William Shakespeare Visit Elsinore Castle?

Posted on September 3, 2010 by hirohurl

In the mid 1580s, a group of English actors went to Denmark and performed at Elsinore. Three of the five actors who are recording as having gone to Denmark are also among “The Names of the Principall Actors” listed in the first Folio edition of Shakespeare’s plays, published in 1623. Could Shakespeare also have gone to Elsinore? Continue reading →

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The Melancholy of Hamlet, by David Hurley

Posted on August 27, 2010 by hirohurl

The Elizabethans inherited from the middle ages a view of man’s body as being composed of a mixture of the four elements, earth, water, air and fire, which were supplied by the intake of food. The liver converted food into four different kinds of liquids, or “humours”, which in turn gave moisture and vital heat to the body. Continue reading →

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Who Will Rid Me Of This Turbulent Step-Son?

Posted on May 17, 2008 by hirohurl

The word “turbulent” occurs only three times in Shakespeare, once in Timon of Athens, once in Pericles, and once in Hamlet… Continue reading →

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A Rat Behind An Arras – No Pun Intended?

Posted on March 2, 2008 by hirohurl

“Wasn’t it an arras behind which Polonius hid when Hamlet entered his mother’s boudoir? And when Hamlet heard him didn’t he cry ‘A rat!’, and couldn’t it be that Shakespeare was deliberately punning?” Continue reading →

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