Comparatively little is known about Shakespeare's first audiences. This study argues that the Elizabethan audience is an essential part of Shakespeare as a site of cultural meaning, and that the way criticism thinks of early modern theatregoers is directly related to the way it thinks of, and uses, the Bard himself.

Though little is known about Shakespeare's Elizabethan audience it has been a constantly recurring theme in Shakespeare criticism and research. While notions of theatre-goers in the early modern age differ widely, they have been repeatedly drawn upon as an explanatory factor. The dramas are said to display certain features because the audiences paying to see them wanted things to be that way. This study demonstrates that, in fact, the various images of Shakespeare's original audience upheld in the course of subsequent ages can be explained in terms of the features obtaining at the respective time. Shakespeare's Elizabethan audience is a decisive factor in the constitution and maintenance of his cultural prestige.