"Often perceived as merely formulaic or historical documents, dramatic
prologues and epilogues - players' comic, poetic bids for the audience's
good opinion - became essential parts of Restoration theater, appearing
in over 90 percent of performed and printed plays between 1660 and
1714. Their popularity coincided with the rise of the English actress,
and Prologues and Epilogues of Restoration Theater unites these elements
in the first book-length study on the subject. It finds that these
paratexts provided the first sanctioned space for actesses in Britain to
voice ideas in public, communicate directly with other women, and
perform comedy - arguably the most powerful type of speech, and one that
enabled interrogation of misogynist social practices. This book
provides a taxonomy of prologues and epilogues with a corresponding
appendix, and demonstrates through case studies of Anne Bracegirdle and
Anne Oldfield how the study of prologues and epiliogues enriches
Restoration theater scholarship."
