PIRATES IN HAMLET AND HAMLET AS PIRATE: PIRATE POLITICS IN EARLY-MODERN ENGLAND

This paper argues that William Shakespeare's Hamlet reveals prince Hamlet to be capable of liaising with criminals like pirates for personal gain. In the play, Hamlet fought with a gang of pirates who surprisingly turned friend from foe. Critics have long understood this fight as a dramatization of Hamlet’s transformation from a meek prince to a daring adventurer who, after his sea journey, returned with renewed courage to challenge his actual enemies. Many researches, nevertheless, have found in this episode an allusion to early modern England’s policy regarding maritime piracy and security. How that policy can seem to have directly influenced Hamlet, however, has not been discussed adequately. Records confirm that early modern English kings have a history of hiring pirates as henchmen cum pseudo soldiers. This research aspires to show a link between this historical unethical practice of English monarchy and the adoption of evil means by Hamlet, a fictional prince of Denmark. In the play, for example, though the pirates kidnapped Hamlet, Hamlet’s attitude remained uncannily patronizing towards them. He even befriended the looters and had them do him services, i.e., transporting him to his country safely from a perilous travel so that he can avenge his father. Upon further investigation, Hamlet’s pirate-incident can be shown to have made Hamlet wanting to be a Danish king after the English model. To show this, a secondary research has been conducted. The result of this research is that, contextualized in the history of early modern sea robbery, Hamlet can appear to be legitimizing piracy just like contemporaneous English monarchy did.