2 - Shakespeare’s Life, Times, and Stage

Summary

In 1968, when Professor G. E. Bentley brought the long labour of The Jacobean and Caroline Stage to its successful conclusion, it was evident that it would inevitably become the basis for many fresh studies of English Renaissance drama. It is a pleasure to record that Professor Bentley himself has used his own unique command of the material to give us, in The Profession of Dramatist in Shakespeare’s Time, a concise and illuminating account of the working conditions enjoyed, or endured, by professional dramatists between 1590 and 1642.

'Professional' is here the key term since this is an aspect of their work that has only recently received scholarly examination. As Professor Bentley writes, 'their professionalism has received comparatively little attention because their productions have commonly been examined as literary phenomena rather than as working scripts for professional actors in a professional theatre'. Some of the material used in the book is, therefore, already available but it has never before been so clearly applied to this particular subject.