Context:
The Renaissance was a time of great divisions and eruptions.
England had only recently become Protestant, having been a
Catholic country until the reign of Henry VIII, Elizabeth
I’s father. So a whole generation before had been openly
Catholic and there are strong reasons to believe that Shakespeare’s
father was a Catholic.
It was a time of plots, espionage and assassination attempts.
Medieval superstition and belief systems were having to accommodate
a rise in intellectual and scientific enquiry. Running through
Shakespeare's plays we see a debate between accepting old
attitudes and adopting a new way of living; nowhere more sharply
contrasted than in Hamlet. | 
