From ”Shakespeare for Everyman”, Louis B. Wright, 1964

"A popular theory today explains our pessimism, our contorted poetry, our formless art, our discordant music, even our beatniks, as a reflection of an age so disturbed, upset and terrified by new forces that classical decorum has no place in our life or art. Our artists must reflect the difficulties of the age. This is both a facile and a futile explanation. The Elizabethan age had many experiences that parallel ours, even to the fear of death and disaster. Yet theirs was an age of hope and courage and of a great and enduring literature. For reasons that remain inexplicable there is a difference between the Elizabethan spirit and ours. The Elizabethans were bursting with enthusiasm, energy, zest for life and the optimistic faith that the world was their oyster, which they could easily open. If at times Elizabethan writers expressed bitterness and cynicism, such moods were not characteristic of the age. There were no Elizabethan beatniks. They did not suffer from world-weariness and ennui. They lived and loved and died, if need be, in the belief that theirs was a glorious world to be made the most of. A seventeenth century equivalent of Rabelais enjoined men not to be “squint-minded”, not to “look out at life through a little hole”, and so to live that one could maintain “a gaiety of spirit in contempt of fortune”. Our ancestors could face both life and death with a cheerful spirit. Men could go to their deaths with a jest – and a prayer – but they never groveled in self pity. Theirs was not an age that pitied itself."