Explain the correlation between Shakespeare and the economy.

Shakespeare is an exemplar both of the influence of individual economic circumstances on processes of literary production, and of the effect of the wider economic context on the content and impact of literary works. At a personal level, his career illustrates clearly the ways in which the market for a writer’s output affects the quantity and nature of the work produced. Perhaps the image of a great artist as a genius oblivious to the financial realities of everyday life persists in the popular imagination, but Shakespeare was far from such a case. He lived at a time when the theatre was becoming more professionalized and there was a growing market for plays. The theatre industry in London was marked by competition between production companies whose business models, in present-day management speak, were attuned to the opportunities of the marketplace. Shakespeare rode the wave with skill and determination such that at his death in 1616 he was both the most famous and most financially successful playwright of his time.