I fear the final conclusion to be drawn from the contrast is, contrary
to expectation, more creditable to our ancestors than to ourselves.
The needful dramatic illusion was obviously evoked in the playgoer of
the past with an ease that is unknown to the present patrons of the
stage. The absence of scenery, the substitution of boys and men for
women, could only have passed muster with the Elizabethan spectator
because he was able to realise the dramatic potency of the poet's work
without any, or any but the slightest, adventitious aid outside the
words of the play.
The Elizabethan playgoer needs no pity. It is ourselves who are
deserving objects of compassion, because we lack those qualities, the
possession of which enabled the Elizabethan to acknowledge in
Shakespeare's work, despite its manner of production, "the delight and
wonder of his stage." The imaginative faculty was far from universal
among the Elizabethan playgoers. The playgoing mob always includes
groundlings who delight exclusively in dumb shows and noise. Many of
Shakespeare's contemporaries complained that there were playgoers who
approved nothing "but puppetry and loved ridiculous antics," and that
there were men who, going to the playhouse only "to laugh and feed
fool-fat," "checked at all goodness there.
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