by the Italian sonnets, which had been introduced into the English language by Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) during the reign of Henry VIII, English poets began to construct their own variations on the intricate, highly structured poetic form. Others, such as Edmund Spenser (1552-1599) in his extraordinarily ambitious poem of homage to gags for the peasant "groundlings" who stood at the foot of the stage, scenes of action and intrigue for the middle class spectators, or elevated language and characters to appeal to the more educated upper class citizens who sat in the tiered galleries around the outdoor stage.
Source 2 http://www.enotes.com/william-shakespeare/shakespeares-globe-theater
But while the Globe Theatre, and indeed, the entire Elizabethan theater scene opened its doors to the low life of the pits, it also accommodated an audience of higher-status, well-heeled, and better educated individuals. As Harry Levin notes in his general introduction to the Riverside......
Join Now or Login to view the rest of this paper.
Approximate Word Count: 545
Approximate Pages: 3 (260 words per double-spaced page) |