Hamlet: The Presence of Religion
By Rosemarie Kingfisher
Audience members have been immersed into the world of Hamlet for 400 years
now. The play hasn’t changed but how we interpret the story, based on collective changes
in thoughts, theories and beliefs over time, does. Understanding the condition of England
at the time Shakespeare was writing can provide valuable information on how to interpret
the story of Hamlet and the psychology of Hamlet himself throughout the Play.
‘Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned, bring with thee airs from heaven or
blasts from hell?’ This is the question posed by Hamlet to the Ghost appearing as his
father in the first act of the play. Hamlet is forced to contemplate very real questions
about the significance of his own life and of the lives of others. Could he really take a
life? What is strikingly different between the English audience of the seventeenth century
and the American audience of the twenty-first, is the presence of religion in everyday life.
It is important to recognize its presence when considering the themes of life and death
that are explored within the play.
The acknowledgment of ghosts stems from a Catholic doctrine recognizing these
forms as souls of the living, not in heaven or hell but in Purgatory. Here they are held to
atone for their sins, cleansed by the prayers of the living until released into Heaven. With
the rise of the Church of England during the reign of King Henry VIII and a developing
Protestant reformation the idea of a Purgatory faded. Strict Protestants believed that
certain people were destined to be saved and stood against the Catholic idea that a simple
confession and other repentances could cleanse the soul. The Church of England,
however, did not refuse the idea that souls may linger with intention, and the poetic
nature of Purgatory remained in the collective religious thought of the English people.
The presence of the Ghost in Hamlet would therefore have been very significant
to the audience member of the seventeenth century. We know Shakespeare to be Catholic
but it is never specified in the play if the Ghost truly is in a Catholic “Purgatory.” We can
accept that Shakespeare may have intended it that way, but also must remember that his
audience would have accepted the Ghost’s presence and its demands of Hamlet,
regardless.
This makes the presence of religion a key factor in Shakespeare’s plays that must
be recognized. Some scholars have even proposed that his plays helped drive changes to
religious and social conditions. I hope putting the play into a historical context will help
you investigate and contemplate the world as Hamlet does. And I invite you to enjoy
Hamlet through a 21st Century perspective and ask yourself what this story means to you.