Five Old Plays

Author : J. Payne Collier
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781330505694
Total Pages : 458 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (56 download)

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Download or read book Five Old Plays written by J. Payne Collier and published by . This book was released on 2015-06-30 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Five Old Plays: Illustrating the Early Progress of the English Drama; Edited From Copies, Either Unique, or the Great Rarity Four of the five Plays which form the ensuing volume belong to a peculiar class of our early dramatic performances, never yet especially noticed, nor sufficiently illustrated. Many specimens have of late years been printed, and reprinted, of Miracle-plays, of Moral-plays, and of productions written in the most matured period of our dramatic literature; but little or nothing has been done to afford information respecting a species of stage-re-presentation, which constitutes a link between Moral-plays, on the one hand, and Tragedy and Comedy on the other, as Tragedy and Comedy existed at the period when Shakespeare and his contemporaries were writers for various theatres in the metropolis. Tins deficiency it has been our main object to supply. The four pieces to which we refer are neither plays which enforce a moral lesson by means of abstract impersonations only, nor are they dramas which profess to consist merely of scenes drawn from life, represented by real characters: they may be said to form a class by themselves, where characters both abstract and individual are employed in the same performance. The most remarkable drama of tins intermediate kind, and the only one to which particular attention has been directed in modern times, is called "The tragical comedy of Appius and Virginia," which originally came out in 1575, and is reprinted in Vol. XII. of the last edition of "Dodsley's Old Plays" from the sole existing copy. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.