ABSTRACT
In Elizabethan times one great avenue to fame and preferment, outside the court and within, was poetry. Science, journalism and politics as yet presented no assured career. The history of the Elizabethan stage is a branch of archaeology with ramifications stretching out into the social and political history, biography, architecture, literature and music of the age. In this short description we can only hope to look at its main features so far as they affect the life and works of Shakespeare. The pits of the Elizabethan theatres were known as "yards" or "cockpits." The stage, therefore, probably represented a temporary platform erected by strolling players in such a yard or cockpit. The pits were circular because a ring is the formation natural to the onlookers of some show. It allows an equal view to the greatest number of spectators. Prices of admission were low.
