Jacobean Tragedy

[Tim Strzechowski]

Was the intended audience for Jacobean tragedy any different from that of Shakespeare's, which were attended (and appreciated) by both high and low classes?

Also, has anyone else found it difficult to actually *get hands on* works that deal specifically with "Jacobean" theatre?  Maybe I'm just not looking in the right places, but the topic itself seems a bit cultish (and all the more Pynchonian, I'd say).

Tim

"calbert at mail.hslboxmaster.com" wrote:

> yes, the genre most decidedly mixes high and low in many ways.....this is a form directed at a largely illiterate audience and employs material of prurient interest to deliver a distorted "message"......bear in mind that REVENGE is counter to God's law, hence its "celebration" must be tampered often by the complete annihilation of the cast, ironically, it is the milleu of revenge which draws the crowd.....but, like the "Hayes code" of old Hollywood, the censors must get theirs too...........
>
> It is also the high drama of the classics twice reduced for "ease of consumption"....once by Seneca, and then again by the Kyd's and Middleton's...
>
> love,
> cfa