SOURCE: Bergeron, David M. “Patronage of Dramatists: The Case of Thomas Heywood.” English Literary Renaissance 18, no. 2 (spring 1988): 294-304.

In the following essay, Bergeron contends that in Heywood's time, the support of dramatists through patronage had not yet been replaced by support from theater audiences.

Werner Gundersheimer, writing on the subject of Renaissance patronage, asks whether Shakespeare's awareness of how the political and social order of European society was reflected in the system of patronage may have “led him to prefer the support of the London crowds to that of a single patronus[.] If so, we may view his career less as a product of, than as a departure from and perhaps a challenge to, the traditional relationships that define patronage in the Renaissance.”¹ I do not think that Shakespeare's dramatic career represents any kind of challenge to the system of Renaissance patronage; instead, I think that the terms...