Throughout history, there have been many great playwrights, and Shakespeare is among the most famous. While some will focus on his life, the controversies surrounding him, or even his vocabulary when discussing Shakespeare, perhaps one of the most important things to consider about him is his work. His work, created with the “normal range of vocabulary” of his day, points to “the effects [he] created” and demonstrates that“[his] language is an extraordinary achievement with the regular resources of the English of his day rather than a linguistic aberration” (Craig 68). In order to appreciate Shakespeare’s skill with the English language, people need to learn the details of his work-- particularly his plays. When considering Shakespeare's plays, it is necessary to answer a few …show more content…
1. Who Were the Actors? Perhaps the first question one should ask regarding the details of Shakespeare’s plays is “who were the actors?” In asking this broad question, one could touch a variety of traits-- names, areas of residence, costuming, education level, socioeconomic backgrounds-- but for the sake of brevity (and since brevity is the soul of wit (Shakespeare 2.2.92)), the primary traits that ought to be discussed (and traits with far more evidence behind them) are the genders and ages of the actors. It is a widely accepted fact that “male actors exclusively played female roles in the professional English theatre from its beginnings to the Restoration,” much like the actors of ancient Greece were first and foremost male, and this practice of using male actors continues even today in the case of original practice casts (Wells 172-3). These male actors varied in their ages, and those ages essentially dictated the roles they were to play. Boys typically performed roles that required a higher pitched voice and