The Renaissance was a time of great social and cultural change in Europe. It was a period characterised by innovation, imagination and creativity. The Renaissance was also a time during which Europe's classical past was revisited and reinvigorated. Much of the inspiration behind cultural movements of the Renaissance came from people's attempts to emulate (imitate and improve) the legacies of classical European societies, such as Ancient Rome and Greece.

The Renaissance also represented a break away from the conformist society "which people strictly follow established rules and practices." and culture of medieval Europe.

The influence on literature:

The Renaissance was also a time of great literary change. Writers and poets looked back to the poems and texts of Ancient Greece and Rome. Renaissance literature dealt much more with human characteristics and behaviours, shifting away from the religious and metaphysical subjects of earlier Medieval books, poems and plays. 

The influence on Hamlet: 
- Through Hamlet’s contemplation of death, his character is solidly connected to the ideals of the Renaissance. 

-Often what is not understood is highly feared and attributed to a greater power, and so an early death or any death preceded by an agonizing illness was considered a terrible event since they were a clear indication of God’s displeasure. These conceptions were replaced in the Renaissance, especially by the time Shakespeare was writing Hamlet....

-A problem of the renaissance was that human beings could never hope to see past those appearances into the “realities” that lie behind them. This is the world in which Shakespeare places his characters. Hamlet is faced with the difficult task of correcting an injustice that he can never have sufficient knowledge of—a dilemma that is by no means unique, or even uncommon. And while Hamlet is fond of pointing out questions that cannot be answered because they concern supernatural and metaphysical matters, the play as a whole chiefly demonstrates the difficulty of knowing the truth about other people—their guilt or innocence, their motivations, their feelings, their relative states of sanity or insanity. The world of other people is a world of appearances, and Hamlet is, fundamentally, a play about the difficulty of living in that world.

http://www.skwirk.com/p-c_s-56_u-422_t-1105_c-4271/wa/sose-history/renaissance-and-reformation/renaissance-in-europe/introduction-what-was-the-renaissance-

http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/hamlet/context.html

The Reformation had a political, cultural, and social impact in Europe. It changed the ways of society towards the religions views, including the catholic church and human nature. Hamlet : The Reformation can be related to Hamlet because Shakespeare wrote about new ideas which contrasted from the Catholic and Protestant beliefs. The play also shows dramatic art, power of expressions, involvement of human nature, which all comes for The Reformation in the 16th century.

What Sceneca brings to hamlet Thematiclly: the theme of revenge for a great wrong that has been done; the ghost of Hamlet’s father that seeks such a revenge and the extreme passion that characterizes Hamlet himself.

Stylistically: what Seneca gives to Hamlet is the meditative soliloquy and stichomythia. (T. S. Eliot)

http://www.litcharts.com/lit/hamlet/background-info

http://www.refo500.nl/en/pages/131/what-is-the-reformation.html

"Hamlet context" SparkNotes. N.p., n.d. Web.

"Intro: What Was the Renaissance." Swirk. N.p., n.d. Web.