Rethinking Prologues and Epilogues on Page and Stage

Abstract

Our chapter rethinks current notions about early modern prologues and epilogues, by considering, for the fi rst time, 1 how differently these documents functioned on the stage and on the page. These documents are, for example, permanently printed in playbooks (when they were included), even though they were impermanently part of performance; they are permanently not printed in playbooks (when they were not included), even though they were spoken on stage; they were sometimes added to, or written for, the page; and they were sometimes tweaked for readers. This chapter therefore recovers the untold, specifi cally non- performance-focused story of prologues and epilogues, looking at, but also beyond, their function as theatrical documents spoken in early modern playhouses to consider them as texts that found their way into printed playbooks. This chapter also offers an overview of the rate of inclusion of prologues and epilogues in early modern printed playbooks. By so doing, it aims to establish whether some types of printed 91