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.)
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.Originally Posted by martian22
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
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
“Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature””
“If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.
BUT, he was also able to appeal to the commoner which made him more broadly popular than his contemporaries.
He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot. ~ Douglas Adams
It is true
“Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature””
“If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.
Shakespeare's plays were good stories and good stories can be appreciated by anybody.
Last edited by Fen; 11-16-2009 at 09:21 AM.
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.
Hamlet: What's his weapon?
Osric: Pistols. At dawn.
Hamlet: That's two of his weapons: but, well.
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.
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