Imagining Shakespeare's Original Audience, 1660-2000 [electronic resource] : Groundlings, Gallants, Grocers /
Boecker, Bettina.author.
Comparatively little is known about Shakespeare's first audiences. This study argues that the Elizabethan audience is an essential part of Shakespeare as a site of cultural meaning, and that the way criticism thinks of early modern theatregoers is directly related to the way it thinks of, and uses, the Bard himself.
Description based upon print version of record.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Introduction -- Shakespeare's Elizabethan audience in seventeenth and eighteenth century Shakespeare criticism -- 'No man of genius ever wrote for the mob': Shakespeare's Elizabethan audience and romantic Shakespeare criticism -- Enter the groundlings -- Childish and primitive: Shakespeare's Elizabethan audience and the turn-of-the-century theatrical avant-garde -- The rediscovery of the judicious few -- Neo-Elizabethanism -- Shakespeare's Elizabethan audience in the second half of the twentieth century.
Comparatively little is known about Shakespeare's first audiences. This study argues that the Elizabethan audience is an essential part of Shakespeare as a site of cultural meaning, and that the way criticism thinks of early modern theatregoers is directly related to the way it thinks of, and uses, the Bard himself.
Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616
British literature.
Literature, Modern.
Literature-History and criticism.
Performing arts.
Poetry.
British and Irish Literature.
Early Modern/Renaissance Literature.
Literary History.
Performing Arts.
Poetry and Poetics.