Absolutely right about the debating propensities of the unlearned, but I was
merely reminding that the Elizabethan stage was a 'business venture'. You
only have to take a peek at Henslowe's 'diaries' or 'accounts' maybe one
should call them.
Take Macbeth, for instance. Why does it exist? Well James I was a
self-acknowledged expert on witchcraft, there was a vogue for the
supernatural on the stage, a Deptford publican, egged on by his wife, had
sensationally murdered a guest or guests, so it was a likely 'seller', the
good guys win in the end too, and in the midst of all this we have a poetic
meditation on time unlike anything in English before.
Heminge and Condell held the catering franchise at the Globe.
Shakespeare was an opportunistic writer, whose intellectual motto could be
the words he gives Romeo for Juliet:
'Who would not adventure for such merchandise?'
regards
david bircumshaw
----- Original Message -----
From: David Kennedy <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2001 11:56 AM
Subject: Re: Shakespeare and Christianity.
> I think that David B.'s colourful account of the Elizabethan capitalist
> stage rather misses out on the impact on everyday and cultural life that
the
> English New Testament had in the period 1500-1600. Access to the Bible in
> English had an enormous impact on the spread of literacy. A Royal
> Proclamation of 1541 stated that English Bibles should be placed in every
> parish church so that everyone could read them. So great was the interest
> caused by the appearance of the Bible in English via Tyndale's New
Testament
> that a Declaration of 1538 tried to stop unlearned people reading and
> debating it in taverns and alehouses. Over 200 editions of Holy Scriptures
> were produced between 1521 and 1600. [For a fuller account see
Greenblatt's
> classic Renaissance Self-Fashioning whence cometh these figures,
> particularly the chapter entitled The Word of God in the Age of Mechanical
> Reproduction.] Greatly amused tho by the idea of Ole Shakey as the
> Lloyd-Webber of his day.
> cheers
> David
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