Page 87 - All About History - Issue 11-14

Shakespeare: Rebel with a cause?

James I
Previously James VI, King of
Scotland, the union of the
Religion Scottish and English crowns
With the death of Mary I and made him the ruler of both
the accession of her half sister countries, as well as Ireland.
Elizabeth I, the religion of He solidified Protestantism
England changed. Elizabeth
and sanctioned the King James
took the country towards Version of the Bible in 1611. James
Protestantism. It is hard to was a great admirer of poetry,
overstate just how an important drama and art and it is believed
part of everyday life religion was Shakespeare wrote Macbeth to
during Shakespeare’s lifetime. During the win his favour and, much as he did
course of the Bard’s life people believed so strongly with Elizabeth, sometimes wrote
in either Catholicism or Protestantism that they to flatter one of his main patrons.
refused to recant their beliefs even when they were Formally the Lord Chamberlain’s
burned alive at the stake. Men, the Bard’s troupe changed
their name to The King’s Company
and received more money and
performed more regularly for James
than they had for Elizabeth.
Politics
Two main forces
were at play during
Shakespeare’s
lifetime in England:
the monarch and
religion. The monarch Elizabeth I
held ultimate power over
One of England’s
the life of their citizens, literally golden monarchs
the power of life and death. Staying
returned England
on the right side of those in power to Protestantism
was obviously a strong influence
but allowed some Catholic
on the Bard and his plays as it traditions to continue and argued
was vital for his career and for his
for greater toleration than her
life that he remained in the good sister Mary had. Much of her reign
graces of those in power.
coexisted with that of Shakespeare
and the Bard and his work became
known to the queen and she
became one of his patrons. She
was undoubtedly a major influence
on him and some of his poems and
plays contained passages directly
aimed at pleasing her.

Social mobility
For centuries, English society
had been a feudal one with a
very clear distinction between the Playwrights and poets
upper and the lower classes. During Like all creative writers, Shakespeare
the Bard’s lifetime, this began to change was heavily influenced by the great
and a middle class was beginning to emerge – social writers that had gone before him.
mobility was increasing, meaning you no longer had Chaucer, one of England’s greatest
to born a peer to become a person of wealth and poets, was a major influence as seen by
influence. Shakespeare himself is an example of the fact that several of the Bard’s works were
this as, although born to a good family, he climbed based on Chaucer poems. Greek writer Plutarch
the social strata through his success. His own social also provided inspiration for his works and
mobility and that going on around him was an Shakespeare sometimes copied whole passages
influence on his work. of his work, with only minor alterations.

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