Context in Context

You cannot integrate what you do not have

By now you have been told several times how to handle context: do not bolt it on, integrate it. You have seen the difference worked through, with a paragraph of background sitting uselessly beside an argument, and the same knowledge folded inside a point about a character so that it earns marks for the argument as well as for the context. That advice is correct and this module does not repeat it. It deals with the half that advice cannot supply. You cannot integrate context you do not have. A student who knows only that a play is "old" has nothing to fold into anything, and no amount of instruction about technique will produce a point. So this module is about the material itself, and for Shakespeare there are three kinds your specification names. What an audience of the time believed about order, authority, the supernatural and the place of women. What they expected of the genre - the shape a tragedy or a comedy was supposed to take. And the conditions the plays were staged in. One useful thing about all three: they are the same whichever of the four plays your school studies, because they describe the world the plays were written for rather than any single story. Learn them once and they work for every question you will be asked.

Words for belief and genre

Six terms for talking about context precisely. Vague phrases like "in those days" earn nothing; these let you say what you actually mean.

Match each belief to how it reads

Why the supernatural is not scenery

A play includes a prophecy that a character chooses to act on. Why does knowing about contemporary belief in the supernatural improve your answer?

• Because an audience who took prophecy seriously would find the character's decision far more understandable, which changes how we judge them
• Because it shows the playwright was trying to create a spooky atmosphere
• Because it shows people in the past were superstitious
• It does not: what matters is only what happens in the text

What an audience already believed

Here is the material, in the terms your specification uses. Treat it as a set of expectations an audience brought into the theatre with them, and which a playwright could rely on, confirm or deliberately unsettle. Order and hierarchy. Society and the universe were widely held to be arranged in ranks, with each thing in its proper place. Disorder at the top was expected to produce disorder everywhere, so a disturbance to rule could read as unnatural rather than merely wrong. Authority and kingship. A ruler's position was understood as sanctioned rather than chosen, which makes rebellion, usurpation or the killing of a ruler an offence against the order of things and not only a crime. The supernatural. Ghosts, witches, omens and prophecy were real possibilities for much of the audience, so such figures carry a weight a modern reader may miss. Providence. Events could be read as directed, so consequences might look deserved rather than accidental. Expectations of women. Obedience to a father or husband, and modesty in public, were the assumed norms, so a woman who speaks, chooses or acts independently is doing something an audience would notice sharply. Religion. A Christian framework in which sin, damnation and salvation were live categories rather than metaphors. ⚠️ And briefly, the staging conditions, since another module on this course teaches how to read a line as performance: plays were staged by daylight in open playhouses, with minimal scenery, an audience standing close on more than one side, and all parts played by male actors. Night, place and weather therefore had to be created in the words, which is why the language does work a set would otherwise do.

Which two belong to tragedy

Select the TWO expectations an audience of the time would have brought to a tragedy.

• That the protagonist would be a figure of high standing whose fall is partly caused by their own actions
• That the play would end in death rather than in reconciliation
• That confusions and disguises would be resolved and end in marriages
• That the events would be drawn from the national past

Tragedy and comedy, expected

What an audience knew was coming. The payoff is at the foot of each column: because the shape was expected, both following it and departing from it carry meaning.

Context in words

An audience of the time expected society and the universe to be arranged in a fixed _____, so a challenge to a ruler could read as unnatural. Belief in _____ meant that ghosts, witches and prophecy carried real weight. Something an audience expected because of the kind of play they were watching is called a _____. A _____ traces the downfall of a protagonist of high standing and ends in death, while a comedy ends with order restored. Plays were performed by _____, in open playhouses with minimal scenery, so night and place had to be created in the language.

Building the point in order

Put the steps of turning a piece of context into a point that earns AO3 marks into order.

• Read what the question is actually about: a character, a relationship, a theme or a moment
• Choose the piece of context that bears on THAT focus, not the most impressive thing you know
• Make your point about the text first, so the argument is already running
• Bring the context in to explain how an audience of the time would have understood that moment
• Say what difference that understanding makes to the question you were asked

One belief, tied to a question

The difference this module is about is not between knowing context and not knowing it. It is between context that answers the question and context that answers no question at all. Take one piece of knowledge: that an audience of the time expected women to be obedient to a father or husband, and modest in public. Now two questions, and two uses of it. Question A asks how a female character is presented. A weak use: "Women at the time were expected to obey their fathers and husbands and to behave modestly." True, and it belongs to no argument. A strong use: "When she refuses the match her father has arranged, an audience who expected obedience would register the refusal as a genuine transgression rather than as ordinary disagreement, which is why the scene generates so much tension and why her later isolation is not surprising." Question B asks about the play's presentation of authority. The same knowledge, aimed differently: "Her refusal is a challenge to her father's authority within the household, and to an audience who understood authority as running downwards in the same way at every level, from ruler to household head, a defiance in a family echoes the larger disorder the play is dramatising." Notice what changed and what did not. The fact is identical in all three versions. What differs is whether it is pointed at the thing the question asked about. That is what your specification means by integrating context, and it is why the test to apply is not "have I mentioned context?" but "is this context doing work on THIS question?"

Background, or an argument

A question asks how a play presents ambition. Four sentences from answers. Select the ONE that gives context as background rather than pointing it at the question.

• Because authority was understood as running downwards from the ruler, an audience would read his seizing of power as a disturbance of order and not simply as a personal success.
• Plays of this period were performed in open playhouses by daylight, and all the parts were taken by male actors.
• Since the audience expected a tragic protagonist's fall to be partly self-caused, his ambition is presented from the start as the thing that will undo him.
• An audience who took prophecy seriously would see his ambition as encouraged rather than invented, which complicates how far we blame him.

Tie it to the focus

Assemble a sentence that uses context to answer a question rather than to decorate it.

Which context fits which question

Four questions on the play your school has studied. Choose the context that would actually do work on each.

• The question asks how the play presents a character's rise to power. Which context helps most?
• The question asks why a scene set at night is written the way it is. Which context helps most?
• The question asks whether a character deserves their fate. Which context helps most?
• You have context that is genuinely interesting but does not bear on the question. What do you do?

Explain how context earns its marks

Using the Shakespeare play your school has studied, explain what an audience of the time would have brought to it, and show how you would use that in an answer. Write about your own play.

• Describe two beliefs an audience of the time held that bear on your play
• Explain what genre your play belongs to and what an audience would have expected of it
• Explain one thing the staging conditions required of the writing
• Choose one moment in your play and say how an audience of the time would have understood it
• Show the same piece of context used for two different question focuses
• Explain why context that answers no question earns nothing
• Finish by stating the test you would apply to your own context sentence