Essay On Elizabethan Literature

Tudor London was an arena upon which two significant literary mediums made a staggering rise: the printed pamphlet and the modern play. The introduction of print, accompanied by a rise in literacy during the 16th century, had brought with it a significant increase in the number of publications circulating in the London market. The influx of printed publications not only brought literature to the hands of hitherto unreachable audiences, but also turned the book into a commercial product, being sold for profit. These changes in the consumption and production of literature are known to have had significant implications upon style, the perception of authorship and views regarding the role of literature (Burrow, 2000, pp. 11-29).

Simultaneously, the public theaters of the Elizabethan era had an influence similar in magnitude upon performance art. The enormous popularity of London's theaters had obliterated, to a certain degree, the relevance of medieval forms of performance, such as the fair and the carnival shows, and even casted a shadow on the royal masque. In this

Both are printed works which include lengthy comments about the world of theater, its moral value and its stylistic qualities. I will first analyze the attitude towards the theater presented in each work and then compare the two works on this basis. This, to me, is a particularly interesting comparison since there has been a substantial claim that Thomas Nashe, the Author of Pierece Penniless, was also the author of Groats-worth of Wit. This claim seems rather impossible given the contrasting judgment that each work casts upon