The rise in Shakespeare's popularity coincided with Britain's accelerating change from an oral to a print culture. Towards the end of the century, the basis of Shakespeare's high reputation changed. He had originally been respected as a playwright, but once the theatre became associated with the masses, Shakespeare's status as a "great writer" shifted. Two strands of Shakespearean print culture emerged: bourgeois popular editions and scholarly critical editions.Dobson, 100–30; Merchant, 43; Taylor, 62.
