WHEN the first performance of Hamlet ended, a column of people streamed into Maiden Lane and then dispersed, radially through the fields and thoroughfares of Southwark, eastward to London Bridge, northward along Horseshoe Alley to the fleet of wherries waiting on the Thames. A litter of nutshells and other debris remained in the darkening cavern of the Globe. The years have sifted into dust the Globe and all who gathered there; no scholarly effort nor feat of the imagination can reverse that ancient process. And even if the miracle occurred, if we could mingle with Shakespeare's audience reincarnate, its secret would prove no more penetrable than the secret of audiences now. What occurs within the minds and hearts of some thousand men and women is not casually revealed: an audience --almost any audience--is as difficult to appraise as the human race itself.
Yet, here is a mystery that we cannot leave alone. How much or how little of Hamlet was understood and appreciated by those for whom it was written, what they took from the play and what they were meant to take, what part they played in its creation, whether Shakespeare wrote as he did because of the nature of everyday folk, in spite of it, or both--these questio
. . .
Had the gifted lyrists of Elizabethan times offered their compositions at two sheets for a penny, they would have found a lively market. Perhaps that is what a glimpse into Shakespeare's would be. They encompass less intellectuality. Like the bawdy-houses, they appear to have been at the mercy of the traditional rowdiness of the prentices on Shrove Tuesday. I think that the history plays reflect some of the cyclical nature of the mystery plays. Throughout my labours I have been controlled by the opinion that I ought to call attention to those writings, which afford particulars, however minute, of new or otherwise peculiar information, likely to be in any way or degree serviceable to historians, biographers, students in any department of literary research, or artists in form and colour. It lodges us still, I should say, amidst a "broode of Hell-bred creatures. The "people," as it signifies only the masses, is itself an exclusive term. The butchers, for example, would perform the Crucifixion. Theatregoing was voluntary; theatregoing was an expense. Cause for reflection is given us by the editor's preface to those same Middlesex County Records of which Chambers makes use:
XIV.
A study of Shakespeare's audience should reveal those conditions most likely to render operative the latent poetry in men.
Approximate Word count =
3834
Approximate Pages =
15 (250 words per page double spaced)
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