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In this transformative study, Simon Smith explores how playwrights like Shakespeare crafted their plays for demanding and varied commercial audiences. Rediscovering the many forms of judgement practised in the early modern playhouse, he investigates influences ranging from the classical tradition and grammar-school classroom to ballad and jest culture. Where many prior studies have treated 'the judicious' as a self-contained subset of playgoers, Smith reveals the variety of careful assessments made in the theatre by a wide range of playgoers, showing that judgement and pleasure were often simultaneous elements of the same response. Chapters examine specific parts of plays that were especially subject to evaluation and generative of enjoyment: spectacle, words, plot, and actorly technique. Close readings shed fresh light on much-studied plays such as Hamlet and Volpone, as well as exploring several unfairly overlooked plays. This is a Flip it Open title and may be available open access on Cambridge Core.