‘But begun for others to end’

Abstract

To make something, it might be assumed, is to aim to produce a finished product. This assumption dominates many critical readings of spectator experiences in the early modern period. Stephen Greenblatt's seminal analysis of Shakespeare's Henry V, for example, turns in part on the complicity of the audience in the production of the image of the king:The audience's tension, then, enhances its attention; prodded by constant reminders of a gap between real and ideal, the spectators are induced to make up the difference, to invest in the illusion of magnificence, to be dazzled by their own imaginary identification with the conqueror. 1