ABSTRACT

By virtue of the very nature of Elizabethan drama, there are particular challenges for anyone attempting to determine the most ‘popular’ play of the period. Drama offers two primary modes of consumption, through the communal experience of theatregoing and the relatively private experience of reading, and success in the one format need not necessarily translate to popularity in the other. Further, our methodologies for measuring both are partial and arguably misleading. This chapter takes the case of a specific play, the anonymous Mucedorus, to interrogate some of the problems in defining and articulating print popularity in the case of drama, and the effects of popularity on the text’s afterlife. Mucedorus, which tells the story of the titular prince who, disguised as a shepherd, woos a foreign princess, kills a savage woodland dweller and unites two kingdoms, is particularly helpful for its relative obscurity in the present day, despite apparently being one of the bestsellers of its time.