1st Edition
The Framing Text in Early Modern English Drama 'Whining' Prologues and 'Armed' Epilogues
By Brian W. Schneider
Copyright 2011
330 Pages
by
Routledge
330 Pages
by
Routledge
330 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
Though individual prologues and epilogues have been treated in depth, very little scholarship has been published on early modern framing texts as a whole. The Framing Text in Early Modern English Drama fills a gap in the literature by examining the origins of these texts, and investigating their growing importance and influence in the theatre of the period. This topic-led discussion of prologues... Read more
Introduction: Matters of Viewpoint; Chapter 1 Matters of Definition; Chapter 2 ‘Prologos’ to Prologue in Classical Drama; Chapter 3 Epilogue Origins and Medieval Framing Texts; Chapter 4 ‘Sit, see and hear’: Prologues, Epilogues and the Dichotomized Audience; Chapter 5 ‘Take your places, ladies’: Prologues, Epilogues and the Female Spectator; Chapter 6 The Framing Text – Matters of Custom; conclusion Conclusion: Identifying the Framing Text;
Biography
Brian Schneider is the Administrative Assistant to the Lexis project at the University of Manchester, UK.
'This book is researched with astonishing thoroughness: the author has even consulted a handwritten, partially illegible, 1893 doctoral thesis on his chosen topic. He also brings to bear an engaging passion for his subject... Under his affectionate coaxing, prologues and epilogues do in fact reveal themselves to be more interesting than one might previously have supposed: Schneider shows that they bear on issues such as the period’s on-going debate about the nature of drama and the roles and desires of audiences in general, and of female spectators in particular.' Theatre Research International 'The Framing Text in Early Modern English Drama offers some interesting close analysis of a subset of dramatic framing texts...' Times Literary Supplement '... [Schneider’s] discussion of pre-Restoration paratextual strategies is nevertheless a welcome contribution to the history of both paratextual poetics and seventeenth-century drama. The strengths of this book clearly lie in the broad approach it takes to its textual material and in its willingness to move far beyond the well-trodden paths around early modern theatrical and literary figures.' Anglia
