The rise of the popular theatre began in the 1560s. Far from being an artistic revolution, it was driven by the capitalists who thought they could make money from public interest in the performing arts. From early on, the emphasis was on making drama pay for itself, and then making a profit out of it. Before the establishment of permanent theatres, actors had formed touring companies who went from town to town, performing plays. This way, they could do a single play for an entire year and find a new paying audience every day. However, a theatre being stuck in one location, a company of actors could not hope to perform a single play for any great length of time, because there was only a limited potential audience close by and it was the same one each time. Consequently, acting companies based in theatres required a regular supply of scripts, especially ones that would be popular with the public.

An analogy with the populist filmmaking industry of Hollywood today is not altogether inappropriate. The public vote with their feet, just like they did back in Shakespeare's day, so it paid to give them what they wanted, regardless of whether those plays had any artistic merit. Indeed, it's likely that many were terrible. There are known examples where plays have been written by three independent writers and slotted together for the stage - a practice not unknown in Hollywood. Many lament the state of Hollywood today, saying that more bad films are being made today than ever before. But actually terrible films have always been made, but it's usually only the better ones that stay with us. The same applies to theatre. The hacks undoubtedly outnumbered all the Shakespeare's, Jonson's and Beaumonts, but their work has been forgotten whilst these playwrights continue to be studied. However, to properly assess the idea of cultural inclusiveness, it's important to first look at the period within its historical context rather than relate it to a modern juxtaposition.

For example, the idea that popular culture can not also be high culture was not a criticism invented for levelling at modern cinema's predilection toward pandering to the lowest common denominator. There has always been snobbery that if something is popular, then it must lack a sufficient level of artistry to make it inaccessible to those lacking a superior education. (It's important to point out here that whilst high culture and low culture can roughly be divided along social lines as well, this was by virtue of the fact that the rich had the money to pay for good schooling. It does not necessarily mean they were more intelligent.) After the rise of popular theatre reached its peak at the end of the sixteenth century, there was an inevitable backlash. This took several forms, including the brief appearance of the neo-classicist movement, but also the rise of private theatres, such as Blackfriars. Costing six times as much as entry into the Globe, its richer audience was assumed to have different tastes.

The key text that would appear to confirm that a cultural divide was forming as of the early 1600s is Francis Beaumont's The Knight Of The Burning Pestle. It is an elitist look at popular drama, mocking many of the archetypal plots, characters and situations that were prevalent in plays at the cheaper theatres, such as the Curtain or the Red Bull. At the start of the play, a Prologue comes on stage to announce the performance of a play called The London Merchant. He is promptly interrupted by an uncouth citizen and his wife, who accuse the players of intending to put on another satirical play that mocks ("girds") their social class. They demand a play about a grocer doing admirable things ("let him kill a lion with a pestle", suggests the citizen's wife) and insist on their hapless apprentice Rafe taking part. As it turns out, the citizens are correct - the play does end up as a satire of the citizenry, but their uneducated attitudes toward drama, not their social stature.

Staged at the Blackfriars theatre, The Knight Of The Burning Pestle would appear to be pandering to those rich theatrical connoisseurs who felt it increasingly beneath them to keep on going to populist plays that were socially offensive in their glorification of citizen achievements. That it was written at all shows an awareness on Beaumont's part of there being a divide, which he obviously hoped to exploit. He was renowned for following theatrical fashions, so perhaps thought a cultural divide was only going to widen. However, he must have known those mocked by his play would not embrace it and that it wasn't a play he would get rich of (because whilst the rich could pay more, there were far more of the poor). So he wrote it with artistic intentions - he had something to say. This, then, is the diametric opposite to Thomas Heywood, writer of If You Know Not Me, You Know Nobody and one of the principle victims of Beaumont's satire.

Heywood entered the world of the theatre the same way Shakespeare did - he became an actor. Though from a reputable family and with a decent education, lack of means drove him to this career. Like Shakespeare, he took up writing plays himself, but he wrote even more prolifically and never denied the fact that he was writing for the gain, not the glory. His frequently dismissed plays are unabashedly populist dramas aimed at citizen audiences. They celebrate those same citizen achievements that a rich Blackfriars audience found so distasteful. Needless to say, none of Heywood's plays were ever written for that theatre.

The second part of If You Know Not Me, You Know Nobody revolves around the character of Gresham, a wealthy merchant involved with the establishment of the Royal Exchange. It's an unashamedly patriotic play that praises the monarchy, the church (indeed, it is the commoners who are depicted as the greatest champions of Protestantism) and most importantly, the city of London. This was a play written for a local audience who could come and wallow in civic pride for an hour or so. As a piece of crowd-pleasing entertainment, it did its job. As a piece of theatre, it hasn't aged well. There is no great depth of characterisation, even of Gresham, and lesser characters change implausibly between scenes to service the plot.

Heywood would be hard pressed to find critics that are willing to defend him on grounds of his artistic merit. His most well-known play, Edward IV, was a revenge play that didn't have an act of revenge in it. The conventions of the revenge play genre require that those wronged must seek vengeance against the wrongdoers. But in Edward IV, they seek forgiveness and mercy instead. Whilst this might sound like some innovative genre-busting on Heywood's part, his unpretentious intention remained to rouse his paying audience with a happy ending they could cheer for. Most revenge plays necessarily end up tragedies, because seeking vengeance (which is God's responsibility) is a sin. However, there is nothing moral in ignoring wrongdoing either. This conflict usually drives the one seeking revenge (such as Hamlet) mad. Heywood subverts this in Edward IV by making forgiveness an even greater virtue - one the audience can support even more.

Heywood is just one of many dramatists who had no artistic pretensions, and were content with being essentially well-paid entertainers. If art has a timeless quality, then that explains why so few (compared to how many must have been written) of these plays survive in the public consciousness today. It would be like showing a propaganda film from the Second World War to a modern audience. They might appreciate what it was trying to do, but it would not have the same effect on them. In this way, much of the populist drama of the Shakespearean era is trapped within its own context. If appreciating art relies on an awareness of its potential resonance, then this might explain why the culturally-educated (or culturally-aware) would find themselves alienated by (or would distance themselves from) the hollow, visceral spectacles written by Heywood and his populist kin.

The impression that would appear to be arising is that the apparent distancing of high culture from popular (or populist) low culture was driven by two forces: firstly, the very particular tastes of the gentry; and secondly, the pretensions of artists themselves. This latter point is further compounded by certain artistic movements of the period, most notably neo-classicism. Neo-classicism was a theatrical creed based on patterns found in classical texts by Horace that became enshrined almost as rules to adhere to. No true neo-classicist play could take place over time period longer than twenty four hours, nor in multiple places that could not be reached in that time. The rules were also strict on sticking to a single genre and using five acts. The thinking behind this was that because it worked for classical texts, and they seemed so much better than all the populist plays that were filling theatres at the present time, then this was a way of bringing art back into drama. It's clearly a reactionary move by its advocates in a response to the rise of commercial theatre. In a way, they are defining what low culture is by what it is not (i.e. it's not neo-classicist).

A useful text to look at here is Pericles, because it was a critical flop at the time, continues to be considered an anomaly today, breaks all the rules of neo-classicism, yet was immensely popular (it was even the first play of Shakespeare's performed after the Restoration in 1660). In certain ways, Pericles is unlike anything else Shakespeare wrote, though symbolic imagery of shipwrecks and concern with the role of the writer would seem like antecedents for The Tempest and perhaps also The Winter's Tale. It also marks the point where Shakespeare lost interest in the dramatic for drama's sake, where characters come to symbolise something rather than being convincing people. Some critics thought it was so bad that it couldn't have been written by Shakespeare, and it was consequently omitted from the First Folio in 1623. Ben Jonson referred to it as "some mouldy tale" in his poem, On 'The New Inn' Ode To Himself, "stale as the shrieve's crusts". We might have expected him to feel a bit more fondness for it. After all, Pericles is a sprawling epic set over several decades and numerous locations. Its critical mauling could be seen as advocacy of the same neo-classicism he himself championed, especially with Volpone. But of course, Jonson knew that theatre did not live or die at the hands of the critics, but at the feet of its audience.

Pericles is then especially important to look at here because in certain critical circles it has come to be a much-feted underdog to support. Critics such as Kenneth Muir and Derek Traversi claim it to be Shakespeare's most misunderstood play, that despite its popularity it is an experiment in poetic symbolism, and that if it fails in this regard, then it is a noble failure. It is perhaps an audacious claim, given that Pericles is no longer favoured amongst actors or audiences alike, but Muir or Traversi and critics like them have found plenty to praise about the play.

They claim it is a poetic parable. The voyages, storms and shipwrecks symbolise birth, death and resurrection respectively. They argue that the play necessarily has to cover several decades because it is about Pericles hoping and trying to find perfection through his dedication to something worthy of love. This couldn't be conveyed as a swift quest lasting several days, let alone the twenty-four hours permitted by neo-classicism. When he wrote it in 1607, Shakespeare had recently converted to apostolic Christianity, a branch of Protestantism that follows the teachings of the apostles very closely. Pericles was, its favourable critics claim, Shakespeare's last attempt at conveying his spiritual vision. A key scene is Act 5, Scene 1, where Pericles hears the Music of the Spheres, but actually it's Marina. This is when Pericles is in the ultimate state of knowing and belief. It's the scene in which he recognises Marina is his long lost daughter. This recognition symbolises a spiritual awakening, which allows Pericles to be restored to his wife and child.

The play ends with the Chorus, Gower (a resurrected poet who himself represents the playwright, picking moments from the life of Pericles and manipulating them to give meaning) transferring the play's joy to the audience. "New joy wait on you!" he wishes in his final line. Those critical fans of Pericles see this happy ending on what first seemed like a tragedy as Shakespeare experimenting with genre (presumably not in the same way Heywood did with Edward IV, though). At first it doesn't seem like a dramatic romance at all. They usually have a compounded structure (so no twenty-year time span) and one-dimensional characters, of which there are many forming an ensemble cast. It's no coincidence that Shakespeare's tragedies are usually titled after a main character (e.g. Hamlet, King Lear), whilst his comedies take their names from elsewhere (e.g. a feast in A Midsummer Night's Dream). However, ways in which Pericles takes on certain facets of the romance include the way it makes use of several locations and the superficial way in which it deals with the suffering of Pericles. It's not presented in much detail and its impact on his character is not stressed. It would not do to make the audience too unhappy if Shakespeare wants them to accept a happy ending.

Initially, then, Pericles would seem to be that bridge between high and low culture. It was a play that was immensely popular for decades after it was first produced and has numerous critics these days willing to extol its artistic merits. But that is taking it out of its historical context. Those self-claimed guardians of high culture today, those who throw their critical weight behind Pericles, differ from those snobs who were the self-claimed guardians of high culture back then, sitting at Blackfriars and turning their noses up at popular theatre. The important thing to note is the culture of exclusivity. Those critics who praise Pericles believe it's a failure of everyone else to appreciate its artistry. However, even more importantly is the fact that the gentry who we assume to be the bastion of high culture in the early 1600s, clearly differ in their opinions from these critics. Now, either high culture has changed, or those who decide what this constitutes have.

It's all very well to highlight the fact that neo-classicism arose to reassert the artist's dominance over a popular entertainment medium conquered by hacks, but it wasn't very successful. The movement lasted a couple of decades, and had far greater success in France and Italy than in England. It was not embraced by rich playgoers because to assume they were culturally more sophisticated than their Globe-attending lower-class counterparts is another cliché that needs dispelling. It is cultural snobbery that leads Muir and Traversi to decry those of us who are incapable of appreciating Pericles, but it was mere class-based socio-economic snobbery that drove the rich to be so dismissive of plays that were popular with the citizenry. This has its roots in a new prejudice that had arisen only since the rise of popular, public theatre. Now that theatres could survive at a subsistence level (or even make a profit) without investment from the nobility, it was seen as a wholly citizen-based industry. Before, the performing arts were a form of servitude; the players knew their place. New laws to insist on noble patronage of the theatre countered this development somewhat, but there was perhaps something comforting in the expensive private theatres - that degree of exclusivity, the reliance of unpopular plays on the rich once more.

That The Knight Of The Burning Pestle was a failure only goes to prove this. Its latter critical success can not be compared to the re-evaluation of Pericles, which is not a widely held viewpoint. The Knight Of The Burning Pestle was a flop in 1607. The assumption that the rich, as our clichéd representatives of high culture in the early seventeenth century, automatically appreciated it is false. Hazelton Spencer argues that it was unsuccessful because the critical satire was resented by the citizenry, but as Alfred Harbage responded: the citizenry wasn't present in the Blackfriars audience. There could be two reasons why it possibly wasn't popular. Firstly, it could have been because they didn't understand it. Secondly, it could have been because they did.

The Knight Of The Burning Pestle, after all, doesn't just mock the simple pleasures of lower-class theatregoers, it mocks the entire divide between high and low culture. At the beginning the play, the interrupting grocer gets what he wants by paying for it, symbolising the corruption of art by commerce, not just in capitalistic theatre, but in private theatres too. That the grocer hijacks one play and customises it to his tastes is just an example. It could have just as easily been about a richer man demanding changes be made to a Heywood-like piece to give it that degree of social exclusivity they sought. Perhaps the Blackfriars audience wasn't ready for the play that they got. Perhaps, like the grocer, they wanted more of what they'd seen before.

Beaumont's play is an astute commentary, not just on the theatre itself, but on the theatre's relation to the real world. The citizen grocer and his wife serve as bridges between the two. Real world concerns continue to interfere throughout the play: runaway apprentices, a daughter refusing a husband that's been chosen for her, the citizen's wife even offers her advice about some fictional chilblains. This heightens our awareness of plays as an artistic medium, a manipulative vehicle for ideas. That the citizens' apprentice Rafe can not die is particularly pertinent, because this is meant to be a comedy, yet he is in his own play-within-a-play in which he is required to die. Beaumont here is not so much breaking the rules of the genre as satirising a close-minded audience or critics who could not accept that.

His comment is worth considering in relation to Heywood's revenge-play-that-wasn't, Edward IV, and also perhaps Shakespeare's Pericles. After all, Pericles broke the conventions of comedy, romance and drama, as well as the rules of neo-classicism, yet it was very popular then, and with certain critics, very popular now. The Knight Of The Burning Pestle was ahead of its time. One day a cultured audience would appreciate its self-satire, but it didn't work in 1607 simply because the audiences of Blackfriars and the Globe, though now increasingly socio-economically polarised, had much in common when it came to their theatrical tastes. In essence, it wasn't successful precisely because the cultural differences were not yet sufficiently deep enough for the satire of elitism versus populism to be either understood or appreciated.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Appleton, W. W. Beaumont And Fletcher: A Critical Study, 1956, George Allen & Unwin, Ltd.

Boas, F. S. Thomas Heywood, 1950, Williams & Norgate

Braumuller, A. R., Hattaway, M. (ed.) Cambridge Companion To English Renaissance Drama, 1990, Cambridge University Press

Finkelpearl, P. J. Court And Country Politics In Plays Of Beaumont And Fletcher, 1990, Princeton University Press

Hartwig, J. Shakespeare's Tragicomic Vision, 1972, Louisiana State University Press

Michael, N. C. Pericles: An Annotated Bibliography, 1987, Garland Publishing, Inc.

Muir, K. Last Periods Of Shakespeare, Racine And Ibsen, 1961, Liverpool University Press

Traversi, D. Shakespeare: The Last Phase, 1954 (1965 edition), Hollis & Carter

NOTES:
I originally wrote some dismissive comments about this essay (I called it "a cheap, nasty, cynical excuse for an essay"), which gave the impression I put no effort whatsoever into it... and were found by the teacher, Peter Womack. Whilst it continues to be true that I did not read "Pericles" or "If You Know Not Me" before writing it, I did read (and enjoy) "The Knight Of The Burning Pestle". I would have been much happier just writing about that, but was advised to read around. As I was under obligation to do a pre-1830 unit, and chose this one, I did not prioritise work for it before my two chosen units: English Surrealism; and Screenwriting (a 5000 word project for one - which I had to start over from scratch, and a twenty-page screenplay for the other).

Instead I read plenty about "Pericles" and "If You Know Not Me" so that I would have a suitable context to write what I had wanted to write about "The Knight Of The Burning Pestle" to begin with. I regurgitated and manipulated what others have written to suit my argument. I don't consider this plagiarism. And I don't think I'm unique in doing this - perhaps I'm just more honest about it. For what it's worth, by the end of the essay my thoughts were entirely my own. Even without trying I had engaged with the topic, even though I didn't have much interest when I started. It got 67% in the end.

The truth of the matter is that I wrote this when struggling under the weight of a hefty workload, when I was feeling very jaded and disillusioned with my education. At GCSE I had been told I would have much more freedom to pursue my own interests at A-Level. At A-Level I was promised the same thing of a degree. Then I get to UEA and they're dictating rules for my course. I personally have little passion for Shakespeare or dramatists in general. I did them in high school and at degree level I find it slightly patronising to be told I need to do this and that to "prove" I am literarily aware. It is no reflection on Peter Womack that I just didn't have sufficient interest in his course to prioritise his project above the two units I chose to do optionally. My heart just wasn't in it...