Were Shakespeare's plays written for "high culture" or "entertain the bawdy masses" during his time?

Question

Currently, the plays of William Shakespeare are viewed as great English literature, and viewed as "high culture". However I heard someone say that Shakespeare was writing "bawdy, violence filled plays written to entertain a mostly drunken and illiterate rabble". Indeed, I've heard that Shakespeare's plays are full of vulgarity and references to sex, which would back up this idea.

So what was it during Shakespeare's time? High Culture (like the opera would be today?) or the 15th century equivalent of the film "The Hangover"? Or somewhere in between? What sort of people went to Shakespeare's plays when he was alive? Kings and Bishops? Or middle class and working classes folks? What did the snooty people at the time say about Shakespeare? "Down with this sort of thing?" or "Marvelous!"?

Answer 1

As I recall from my readings, the floor of the theatre was where the masses sat, when they attended. Most would probably be drunk, considering the state of water sanitation at the time beer was the favored drink over raw water, and most would probably be ill-mannered. The well-to-do when they attended sat in the box seats above the "rabble", so that should give you an idea of the crowds and attendance. Plays pandered to both audiences, in some ways like the children's movies of today that can garner attention from kids and adults with similar material.

Answer 2

There wasn't such a huge distinction between high culture and low culture at the time, especially in the early english drama. Some of the earliest english drama, including the mirable and mystery plays, were put on by guilds, and had a rather amateurish quality.

Answer 3

Shakespeare wrote for popular and aristocratic audiences both.

Like other theater companies of the era, Richard Burbage's company (of which Shakespeare was a part) depended upon patronage by members of the aristocracy; it was known at various times as "The Lord Chamberlain's Men" and "The King's Men" to reflect who its patrons were.

Shakespeare's plays were most often performed to large crowds. The Globe Theatre and Blackfriars were built to accommodate different social classes. There were also private performances of Shakespeare's plays to the court of King James. Some of Shakespeare's plays included content aimed at pleasing his patrons; for instance, the play Macbeth, in contrast to the sources Shakespeare drew from, portrayed Macbeth's claim to the throne as entirely illegitimate, and includes a scene that is largely flattery for King James and his ancestors (that is, Macbeth's second meeting with the witches, in which they show him the line of succession of Scottish kings that leads up to King James.)

Shakespeare's intellectual background is often contrasted with Christopher Marlowe, a contemporary playwright who had been a scholar at Cambridge. However, while Shakespeare was not a university scholar, he was widely read, and his plays drew on a variety of classical and contemporary literary sources.

Of course, much of the content of Shakespeare's plays can be understood without classical education, and include physical comedy, sexual humor, and action scenes, that would appeal to a wide audience; and we know his plays drew large audiences.

Several of Shakespeare's plays include a play-within-a-play, most famously Hamlet and A Midsummer Night's Dream; the latter, particularly, gives a stylized glimpse of different social classes interacting through the theatre, and reacting to different aspects of the story.