Afterword: Shakespeare's attitude to puppets

This afterword is also a ‘beforehand’: it gives a background for the articles in this special issue, exploring William Shakespeare's own references to puppet shows, puppets themselves and puppet audiences and looking too at the actual puppets he may have used in his plays. Its argument is that, from the first, the relationship between Shakespeare and puppets was reciprocal; he treated puppet plays in much the way that, as these trenchant articles have shown, Shakespeare's plays have come to be treated by puppets and puppeteers.