Shakespeare's audience.

It is sometimes said that Shakespeare's plays were as popular in his day as soap operas are today. Does this mean that audiences were more sophisticated then? (This is a question that was originally asked in the Notes and Queries section of 'The Guardian' (UK newspaper) a few years ago but I didn't manage to read any of the responses then so I thought I'd ask people here what they think.)

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Originally Posted by martian22

It is sometimes said that Shakespeare's plays were as popular in his day as soap operas are today. Does this mean that audiences were more sophisticated then? (This is a question that was originally asked in the Notes and Queries section of 'The Guardian' (UK newspaper) a few years ago but I didn't manage to read any of the responses then so I thought I'd ask people here what they think.)

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Shakespeare appealed to various elements of society. He was so great that he was soap opera and high literature simultaneously. It wasn't the audience that was special. It was the writer.

Shakespeare wrote his plays with a target or focus of a certain social stratum not for the common man. In those days dramatists even poets were patronized by kings and emperors and dramas were staged and poems were read to entertain / enlighten? them only and the common man was de-listed there

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Originally Posted by blazeofglory

Shakespeare wrote his plays with a target or focus of a certain social stratum not for the common man. In those days dramatists even poets were patronized by kings and emperors and dramas were staged and poems were read to entertain / enlighten? them only and the common man was de-listed there

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BUT, he was also able to appeal to the commoner which made him more broadly popular than his contemporaries.

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Originally Posted by xman

BUT, he was also able to appeal to the commoner which made him more broadly popular than his contemporaries.

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It is true

Shakespeare's plays were good stories and good stories can be appreciated by anybody.

Just echoing all that's already been said.

The playhouses themselves were built to accommodate people of all classes; the seating was arranged groundlings to nobles.

To give you a more textual reference, Macbeth's line --

...No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.

-- is one example of his ability to effectively communicate to the aristocracy and common-folk alike. The first half is difficult for modern anglophones to understand and was indubitably something only the educated would have appreciated during the Renaissance, while the words 'making the green one red' summarize it in simple terms for all to understand.

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Originally Posted by martian22

It is sometimes said that Shakespeare's plays were as popular in his day as soap operas are today. Does this mean that audiences were more sophisticated then? (This is a question that was originally asked in the Notes and Queries section of 'The Guardian' (UK newspaper) a few years ago but I didn't manage to read any of the responses then so I thought I'd ask people here what they think.)

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I don't know if the typical audience from 1600 was more sophisticated than a contemporary audience, but I'm pretty sure that they were better listeners.