Sep 8, 2008

Shakespeare's World | Education and Apprenticeship

The play within the play in A Midsummer Night's Dream, "Pyramus and Thisbe," is apparently fantastic in plot and language; yet it vividly reveals some of the realities of the England that Shakespeare knew. The scene presents noblemen and artisans, separated by an enormous difference in wealth and standing but linked by their shared ability to read and write. It reveals that aristocrats and commoners alike were literate enough to use their skills for recreation as well as for practical ends. But it also shows powerfully that merely knowing about mythological characters—or performing...