Begging, Borrowing, Stealing from History: Shakespeare's Way

Reading about what was going on during the life of Shakespeare shows how great of a connection there was between the political drama of the day and between his plays. Hamlet is an example of one play being routed in the problems of the day. Hamlet, the main character, believes that he father was poisoned and that his uncle killed him. Hamlet was very skeptical, thinking that his uncle wanted to take over the crown. Queen Elizabeth I was also very paranoid that there were those who were trying to take her crown. She even banned Essex from knighting any of his men because she was afraid that they would have more allegiance to Essex than to herself. Perhaps a bit of the Queen’s hysteria of maintaining power translated into his plays.
Another thing to note about Hamlet, and Shakespeare’s plays in general, was that they never take place in England. What is interesting though is that Will never had the chance to leave the shores of England to explore the world. Scholars suggest that Will was interested in the outside world because of his contact with merchant traders from all over the world who used the Thames to port their ships and London to trade their supplies. I can imagine Will walking around the streets of London on morning, running his latest play ideas through his head, and stumbling upon some Danish men, finding their accents to be most delightful and deciding to use them as characters in his next play.
The ships that sailed into London also offered another way for Will’s plays to be spread among the masses. As I have said before, I enjoy the fact that Will wrote to the masses and he wrote to make money. Apparently, Hamlet was preformed upon a ship. The captain said that it was “‘to keep [his] people from idleness and unlawful games, or sleep,’” (Shapiro 275). This is in keeping with the idea of plays being the films of the times. How often do parents sit their children in front the tele just to keep them occupied, out of trouble? How often do teenagers play videogames because their homework is boring? I am thinking that plays are just a hyped up version of interactive tele. Shakespeare was already a revolutionist.
Shapiro’s novel goes on to explain how to connect Hamlet and the drama of the old Kings death to the death of chivalry and the problem of the Irish during that time. What is reassuring is that Shapiro admits that Will might not have known all of the information of the coup and the threat of a foreign army, which means it was pure coincidence. What I do like is that Shapiro said, “It was a time when such things could be imagined…” (283). Shakespeare was borrowing, begging, and stealing from his own time period to concoct a new drama. This makes sense. Although, the first folio of Will’s works was not created till after his death, the great master could have been putting on or creating as many as three to five play in the year 1599. THAT IS CRAZY! The man had every right to borrow from history. He was just feeding the masses with more plays to keep them busy and happy.