I did not say it was a direct quote; it was a paraphrase.
Shakespeare wrote for the masses, yes; it would be an interesting comparison (if the historians have adequate knowledge) to compare the contemporary experience and interpretation of Shakespeare, by his audiences (did they prefer Titus Andronicus to Merry Wives of Windsor?) to ...not movies, they aren't interactive, but to well-done professional theatre, say, farces such as Ray Cooney's Whose Wife Is It Anyway?
Gulliver's Travels (as well as A Modest Proposal) contained biting political commentary; did Shakespeare's audiences appreciate or demand the same?
I missed your line about Hee Haw.
You *owe* it to yourself to re-read Sayers. I was extremely impressed -- for example, her treatment of The Documents in the Case which (returning, sort of, to the original topic) concerned a love triangle: the lover poisons the husband by using a synthetic form of a poison found in certain wild mushrooms, but gets tripped up because the synthetic form is a racemic mixture of the D- and L- forms of the poison. And she wrote this in the 1930s before the molecular theory behind the behaviour was understood.
Oh -- and go re-read Gaudy Night. A really good discussion of the role of "hearts vs. brains" and the role of women in society.
As for Allingham: I got one of hers as "books-on-tape" (CD/DVD) for my wife. She couldn't concentrate on it in the car, so I gave it to my boss. ;-)
The sword fights, torture, and the like were also for the masses; kind of like horror movies, car chases, and such, today in movies and T.V. shows.
The "histories", that dealt with English kings were written to curry favor with Queen Elizabeth I and some of the aristos. They were also propaganda fro the masses, who weren't all that educated, if educated at all.
There were different levels in the Globe theatre and being close to the stage is NOT where the "elites" were at all! This was a place for the masses, who interacted with the actors, by throwing things ( food, usually ), hooted, howled, yelled things at the actors and carried on in general.
Going to the theatre, back then, was NOT anything like what more modern people are used to at all.
Mostly, the audiences were composed of men. There were always some women in attendance ( mostly whores, orange and other food sellers, mistresses, and sometime some Royals, though they usually had a troop of players come tho their homes to do plays, so women got to see them then ), but "high brow" theatre was NOT, back then!
Fast forward a few hundred years and we come to opera. That most assuredly wasn't as rowdy. OTOH, it too was NOT "high brow"/only for the "elites"! And by the mid 1800s, operettas which are the forerunners of the modern Broadway musical, were for EVERYONE and usually "family" entertainment; especially Gilbert & Sullivan and Humperdinck, whose opera HANSEL AND GRETEL was a stable for children to go to, into the 1950s, in America.
Gulliver's Travels was just part and parcel of Swift's usual biting satire pieces, which is wrote on different topics, not just politics.
I tend to read non-fiction and have done, more and more so as the years go by, throughout my adult life.
I was always an avid reader, who read fiction almost exclusively, until my mid to late 20s. Then I read a mix of fiction ( which I began to read less and less of ) and non-fiction, until I couldn't find any "new" fiction worth a damn to read; let alone to buy...so I didn't.
I'm sort of out of reading detective stories ( yes, even Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, which I adored ) and I can't see going back to it right now. But after I get through with Bank's The L Shaped Room trilogy, I might take up your suggestion.
Re Allingham...her books are FANTASTIC!Once I found her and the books, I bought and read every single one of them; even the one/s that her husband finished for her, after she had died. You should try reading her work.
Re the post of mine that you "missed", I said that I love some country music ( Patsy Cline, Tennesse Ernie Ford, Johnnyh Cash and all of the Carters ), love MONTY PYTHYON ( since the '60s ), almost of their movies ( HATE "THE MEANING OF LIFE"...especially the vomit scene! ) and am a wild fanatic for FAWLTY TOWERS!
Would you like a list of all of the Brit Coms I've been and still am crazy for, since they've been shown in America and/or the ones I saw in London, over the years?
And if that stuff isn't low brow enough for ya, I'm a WHOITE of very long standing, though truth be told, once they resurrected it, I grew less and much less fond of that show and only watched it out of habit, until I just stopped watching it, never to watch it again.
And I LOVED "ORPHAN BLACK" !
I don't give a damn what some might label the books, music, movies, and T.V. shows I like; I like what I like and know what's good and what isn't.
I'm not like the NYC "400",of the Gilded Age, who bought boxes and went to the opera to be seen and hated the whole thing, but who felt that it was "THE THING TO DO"! Ditto for ballet, Shakespeare, and anything else someone calls "high brow".
I hope that clears things up, for you. :-)