Why Did William Shakespeare Write His Plays?

To fill a need in the repertory of the Queen's Men, the acting company he worked for. This acting company, which became The Lord Chamberlain's Men, then The King's Men, was always clamouring for plays to perform, as the turn over was forever increasing, due to several factors. Firstly, England was emerging from a Feudal, baronial system of fiefdoms and servile servitude, to a forward looking world enterprise. A powerful merchant class was trading far beyond England's shores, bringing in exotic and glamorous trade from the Silk road and Canton. With the falling away of the Feudal medievil systems, England began its rise,using the great influx of labour from the counties to the main cities, London in particular. Indeed, thanks to the privateers of naval activity, namely Drake, Frobisher and Hawkins, Spanish treasure galleons from the West Indies were, almost daily, casually robbed to the furious incandescence of the Spanish Ambassador! With this, and other national considerations, England also emerged from a backward, illiterate country, to one of Scientific discovery on an ever widening scale. With the great population explosion in London, ( 200,000), when only three other English cities had more than 10,000, plays and other entertainments were to the forefront in the peoples minds, and so Shakespeare and his contemporaries were constantly hard at it to satisfy an ever increasing London Intellectual population. Suffice to say, that not one original text of Shakespeare's work survives today! All of his writings were disposed of! You may be lucky and discover a text of Love's Labours Won! 1500 copies of which were printed!