Shakespeare Target Audience

Bear-baiting was a very popular source of entertainment in the late 1500s in Elizabethan England, involving dogs attacking a captive bear. The audience for this form of entertainment, was people who enjoyed watching blood, gore, and violence. Another form of entertainment people enjoyed during this period was stage plays, which was popularized by William Shakespeare. How did he convince those whom enjoy bear-baiting to come watch his plays? Shakespeare was aware of his surroundings and he knew what the audience liked. Hence, he wrote tragedies where there was blood, gore, and violence, which the audience enjoyed. The ultimate reason for Shakespeare’s success is that apart from good writing, he was also aware of the audience’s knowledge, awareness,

Factors such as personal experiences, time period, location, socioeconomic status, and values influence a writer but, most importantly, the audience, influences a writer’s work. Awareness plays a critical role because the writer wants to impress the audience by increasing his or her awareness towards the audience. Being aware of the audience's knowledge, attitude, and demands will help the audience relate to themselves and make connections with the writer. To target an audience, a writers always connect his or her values with that of the audience as a way of being aware. That way, the writing will have meaning to the audience because the audience is now physically, logically, and emotionally connected to the writer. For example, if I had to write an essay that college professors would review, my essay would have vocabulary words, citations, and anything that is related to the university. Since the professors are in America my writing consists of people and events that Americans are a lot familiar with. In this particular essay, I chose the example of Shakespeare because I know that in order to get into college, we all read at least one Shakespeare play. Other than writing, awareness is also helpful in