6 Understanding art
Six strategies for understanding art
Consider the following six very broad strategies for understanding Shake-
speare’sHamlet.
1.Hamletcan be seen in light of the conscious preoccupations of a roughly
identifiablehistoricalepoch suchasJacobeanEngland, the Renaissance, orearly
modern Europe. For example, one may see the play as addressing problems of
political authority and succession, problems of conscience in the light of the
Reformation’s resistance to priestly mediation between individuals and God,
problems of stagecraft and performance, or some combination of these and
other problems. Shakespeare may reasonably be supposed to have known and
thought about these problems. To exploreHamletin this light will mean relating
the text to varieties of contemporary documents–for example, political trea-
tises, religious tracts, and instruction manuals for actors–that likewise evi-
dently address such problems. Reading will focus on how the action of the play
presents characters confronting these problems.Hamletis here seen as a con-
sciously formed document that partakes of the spirit of its times.
2.Hamletcan be seen in light of Shakespeare’s individual biography.
Though location in relation to an epoch may matter here as well, more
emphasis will fall on locating the play in the arc of the development of
Shakespeare’s ownœuvre. One will ask: How does this play take up issues
of jealousy and trust in particular that occupied Shakespeare in other plays
but were perhaps less widely addressed elsewhere? How do the plays as a
group bear the impress of that personality’s history of being interested in
problems in a distinctive, individual fashion? What is Hamlet’s place within
this group? Do we have any direct biographical evidence–for example, from
journals or letters–that enables us to relate the play to Shakespeare as a
distinctive individual agent with conscious preoccupations?142