Shakespeare's London

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Shakespeare's London
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Background Facts

• Shakespeare baptised 26th April 1564 died 23
  April 1616
• Shakespeare in London app. 1590-1613
• The Renaissance 1485-1625

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The Renaissance

• A.k.a. The Elisabethan Era
• Rebirth of Classical (Greek/Roman) thought
• Focus on Man life on Earth
• Two contributing factors
• The fall of Constantinople (1453) ? brain drain
• Gutenberg's printing press (1456)

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Life in London

• 200,000 inhabitants
• Prosperous city ? booming entertainment business
• Attracts talent from all over Britain
• Very socially unstable and violent (click photo)
• Politically and Religiously unstable
• Two fundamentalist groups
• Crypto-Catholics
• Puritans (Protestants)

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Background for Elisabethan Drama

• Economic prosperity
• Great and varied audience (13 of pop.)
• Necessity for the cultivation of the Landed
  Gentry
• Puritans disapproved of the theatre
• Protected by the Queen
• ? theatres outside the city walls

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Theatres in London app. 1600