1616 and 1623

Ben Jonson published his folio in 1616, the same year that Shakespeare died. This was a shock to the community because plays were not considered high art. When Shakespeare’s plays were published in the First Folio in 1623, it was not as much of a shock because of what Ben Jonson had done. Publishing the plays makes them into a high art form, rather than the low art form that they had been previously. Even after the plays were published, they were still considered trash literature at the time. Theaters and theater people were not considered to be good. The Puritans consider It was only later that people began to read them the way that we do. ed them evil because cross-dressing was built into any play that had female characters. Plays already sat on cultural pressure points and Shakespeare did not shy away from that. Publishing the plays was very important to the way we still read Shakespeare.

Rebecca Flick