ence in order to deter any violent activity. The Greeks slowly but surely moved away from this idea as did other playwrights, and by the late 1500's a new writer with a new view on violence was beginning to write plays. His name was William Shakespeare. Many critics were bothered by Shakespeare's failure to follow the rules of the ancient Greeks, especially the rules concerning violence, but they also objected to Shakespeare's comic sexual passages, which they considered vulgar. Shakespeare was a writer during what has historically been called the Elizabethan era. Shakespeare's plays reflect the shift from optimism to pessimism in Elizabethan society. "Elizabethans were keenly aware of death and the brevity of life" (Info Find), but death and violence fascinated the Elizabethans. "They flocked to the beheadings of traitors whose heads were exhibited on poles and watched as criminals were hanged, and they saw the rotting corpses dangle from the gallows for days" (The Student Handbook 2: 591). Elizabethans, literature and lives were very violent. In Shakespeare's play Hamlet all the main characters die through murder or suicide, all of which is shown on stage. Those critics who say excessive violence has only become a common occurence in today's entertainment, should watch Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus with its' stage direction, "Enter a messenger with two heads and a hand" (Klavan 98), or they should watch as quarts of stage blood are poured all over the "victims" in that same play.Novels, just like television, movies, and plays can cause violence. Throughout history novels have been the cause of violent behavior. Those who say people can't be influenced by books, should really look into the influence that a book called Uncle Tom's Cabin had ten years prior to the Civil War. In 1851 Uncle Tom's Cabin, written by Harriet Beecher Stowe was published. The novel told of the hardships and cruelties faced by African-American slaves in the sou...
