Shakspere and Montaigne: An Endeavour to Explain the Tendency of 'Hamlet' from Allusions in Contemporary Works

In Short

Jacob Feis presents an intensive historical and literary investigation arguing that William Shakespeare designed Hamlet as a direct counterblast to the skeptical, humanistic philosophy of Michel de Montaigne. By examining parallel passages, contemporary theatrical rivalries, and the socio-political climate of Elizabethan England, Feis demonstrates how the London stage served as an arena for urgent religious and political debates. The study traces how Shakespeare and his rival Ben Jonson used their plays to attack and defend competing worldviews, casting Hamlet not as a simple tragedy of indecision, but as a deliberate allegorical critique of French skepticism and moral passivity.

The Story

Feis opens his investigation by acknowledging the endless fascination and contradiction surrounding Hamlet. For centuries, critics have attempted to extract Shakespeare’s personal faith and political views from his plays, yielding a bewildering maze of conflicting theories. Feis contends that the key to unlocking the play lies not in subjective modern impressions, but in the fiery religious and political controversies of the Elizabethan era. From its earliest days, the English stage was far more than mere entertainment; it was a powerful medium where playwrights constantly risked imprisonment to address matters of State and Church, challenging ecclesiastical authority and shaping public thought.

Turning to the historical plays, Feis shows how Shakespeare altered his source materials with clear intent. In King John, Shakespeare suppressed historical details to reflect Queen Elizabeth’s ongoing struggles against domestic rebels and foreign Catholic adversaries. Theater was intrinsically political, speaking directly to the anxieties of a nation asserting its independence.

The heart of Feis’s thesis emerges with the arrival of John Florio’s English translation of Michel de Montaigne’s Essays. Montaigne’s fashionable skepticism, his focus on naturalism, and his wavering moral stance threatened to introduce a debilitating intellectual cynicism to English life. Feis argues that Shakespeare recognized this danger and constructed Hamlet as an explicit satire of Montaigne’s philosophy. Hamlet’s famous indecision, his morbid fixation on evil, his erratic behavior, and his fatalistic reliance on a "daimon" or divinity shaping his ends mirror Montaigne’s own self-contradictory writings and passive worldview.

This philosophical conflict quickly spilled over into the broader Elizabethan playwright war. Feis meticulously traces the dramatic skirmishes between Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, John Marston, and Thomas Dekker. Jonson, allied with Florio and defending Montaigne’s honor, launched bitter theatrical attacks against Shakespeare. In Poetaster, Jonson mocked Shakespeare under the figure of Crispinus, issuing a scathing prescription for his "small Latin and less Greek." Shakespeare retaliated through Hamlet, giving Jonson a bitter "purge" that scandalized the literary establishment.

Jonson counters again in Volpone, openly mocking English writers who steal from Montaigne and lampooning Hamlet’s themes. Meanwhile, Marston’s The Malcontent further burlesques Shakespearean soliloquies and motifs. Feis concludes by highlighting the fundamental contrast between Montaigne’s detached, aristocratic skepticism and Shakespeare’s deeply grounded, active English genius—a genius that ultimately withdrew from urban literary spites to cultivate his native soil.

How It Unfolds

The stage as a battleground The book begins by establishing that Elizabethan drama was thoroughly steeped in contemporary politics and religion, despite frequent royal proclamations and censorship aimed at silencing controversial players.

The shadow of Montaigne Feis introduces Michel de Montaigne’s Essays, detailing how the French writer’s humanistic skepticism and "Que sçais-je?" motto gained immense popularity among English intellectuals following John Florio’s translation.

Hamlet as a philosophical mirror The author analyzes Hamlet, step by step, demonstrating how the Prince’s whimsical speeches, his cynical warnings to Polonius, and his sudden fatalistic actions directly scourged Montaigne’s philosophical inconsistencies.

The war of the theatres The narrative shifts to the fierce personal and professional feud between Ben Jonson and Shakespeare, showing how Jonson’s Poetaster attacked Shakespeare’s background while Shakespeare used Hamlet to deliver a severe public purge.

Echoes across the playhouses Feis examines late Elizabethan plays like Jonson’s Volpone and Marston’s The Malcontent, identifying explicit allusions, parodies, and retaliatory jabs aimed at Hamlet and Shakespeare’s dramatic dominance.

The grounded poet The study concludes by contrasting the evasive, intellectual game played by courtly satirists with Shakespeare’s practical, resolute nature, symbolized by his eventual retirement to the soil of Stratford.

The People

William Shakespeare ("Shakspere") The master playwright who uses his art to engage with the weightiest moral and political questions of his era. Desiring practical moral clarity and patriotic unity, he rejects passive cynicism, crafting Hamlet to challenge Montaigne’s growing influence while fiercely defending his own dramatic authority against envious theatrical rivals.

Michel de Montaigne The aristocratic French essayist whose skeptical humanism, inconsistent ethics, and "naturalist" philosophy serve as the primary target of Shakespeare’s critique. He seeks an unprejudiced examination of all human knowledge, yet his wavering logic and detached moral stance represent, to Shakespeare, a dangerous decay of practical human action.

Ben Jonson Shakespeare’s chief literary adversary, a combative, highly classical playwright who seeks courtly patronage and intellectual dominance. Proud of his scholarly rigor, Jonson defends Florio and Montaigne while launching scathing dramatic satires against Shakespeare’s popular style and modest classical education.

Hamlet The dramatic embodiment of Montaigne’s philosophical flaws. He struggles with crippling indecision, masks moral hesitation behind frantic logic, and palliates cruel, impulsive actions by claiming to be guided by an irresistible divine impulse.

Horatio Hamlet’s steady, stoic friend who represents an ideal of antique Roman virtue, standing as a firm contrast to Hamlet’s wavering, overly analytical mind.

In Its Own Voice

"It has always been a daring venture to attempt finding out Shakspere's individuality, and the range of his philosophical and political ideas, from his poetical productions."

Feis opens his study by framing the immense challenge facing any critic who attempts to decipher the true personal convictions behind Shakespeare’s vast dramatic output.

"To counteract the pernicious influence which the frivolous, foreign talker threatened to exercise, in large circles, through an English translation--this, in our opinion, was the object which Shakspere had when touching upon ground interdicted, as a rule, to the stage--namely, upon questions of religion."

The author directly asserts his core hypothesis: that Hamlet was written explicitly to combat the intellectual and moral risks posed by Montaigne’s philosophical essays.

"The energetic English genius wishes that they should regulate our life; that we should act in accordance with them, so that no tragic complication should form itself, which could only be solved by the ruin and death of the innocent together with the guilty."

Feis summarizes the contrast between French philosophical speculation and Shakespeare’s demand for active, morally responsible human engagement.

What It's Really About

At its core, Feis’s work is an investigation into the hidden ideological battles embedded within Elizabethan literature. It argues that Hamlet is not merely a psychological study of grief or hesitation, but an intentional philosophical polemic. Feis explores the tension between passive intellectual skepticism—which questions everything while avoiding moral responsibility—and purposeful moral action.

The book highlights how literature absorbs and reflects the anxieties of its age, showing that Shakespeare was deeply concerned with the practical consequences of ideas on human behavior and society. By connecting the text of Hamlet to contemporary theatrical rivalries and translation politics, Feis asks fundamental questions about how art responds to foreign intellectual trends, how authors settle personal grievances on stage, and how drama shapes national identity.

Why Read It Today

Shakspere and Montaigne offers a fascinating window into nineteenth-century Shakespearean scholarship and historical criticism. Readers who enjoy literary detection, Elizabethan history, or deep textual analysis will find Feis’s argument engrossing. His meticulous comparison of line-by-line allusions between Hamlet, Montaigne’s Essays, and the plays of Ben Jonson reveals just how tightly knit and combative the Renaissance theatrical community really was.

The book does carry the distinct hallmarks of its era. Feis writes with an unyielding confidence in his singular hypothesis, occasionally treating contentious textual interpretations as established facts. Modern readers may find his dense structural analysis of minor Elizabethan plays demanding, and his spellings and period references require attentive reading. Furthermore, his strong nationalistic bias—contrasting "energetic English genius" with "frivolous" foreign philosophy—reflects nineteenth-century critical attitudes that are worth observing with an objective eye. Yet, for anyone eager to see Hamlet pulled out of abstract isolation and placed directly into the noisy, competitive world of London’s Globe Theatre, Feis’s work remains a sharp, provocative, and deeply researched study.