Paragraph on “When were large numbers of plays first published in England?” complete paragraph for Class 9, Class 10, Class 11 and Class 12

When were large numbers of plays first published in England?

After the victory over the Spanish Armada, Elizabethan trade expanded enormously all over the world. Sailing ships returned home laden with precious merchandise from Asia, Africa and America. Less fortunately, how-ever, the foul plague returned to London. It was carried by the fleas on rats in the ships — a fact the Elizabethans were not aware of. They had some very confused ideas about its origin and the Puritans reasoned that ‘the cause of the plague is sin, the cause of sin is the theatre, therefore, plainly the cause of the plague is the theatre.’ In 1592, all public places, including the theatres, were closed as a precaution against the plague. Some of the acting companies went into liquidation, others left London to tour in the provinces. Some companics were forced to sell large parts of their repertory to publishers in order to raise money. And it was in this way that we know about plays which hitherto had been en-trusted to unreliable copies and the memories of the actors.

In those days, there was no such thing as copyright. A script was sold to an acting company for between four and eight pounds and the script then belonged to that company until it was published. As companies were constantly needing new plays, the leading actors had to rearrange old scripts. Shakespeare, who, at that time, was working as an actor with James Burbage, revised old scripts and borrowed other peoples’ stories, thus earning the wrath of his fellow playwrights, including Robert Greene!