“Comedies for Commodities”: Genre and Early Modern Dramatic Epistles

Abstract

Theatrical epistles served to “textualize” or stabilize the open‐ended theatrical possibilities of early modern popular drama. To a great extent, these epistles supplemented the work done by quartos (and later folios) to which they were fixed by disciplining and controlling unruly theatrical performances. Reading prefatory epistles for such plays as The Duchess of Malfi, ’Tis a Pity She's a Whore, Knight of the Burning Pestle, and, most closely, Troilus and Cressida in relation to historical performances and textual editions of the play allows modern readers the opportunity to examine closely the material conditions of early modern drama and to understand better the moment in literary history when plays were becoming literature and playwrights, poets. In short, the function of dramatic prefatory material is to mark the move from stage to page, thus, shedding light on the triangular relationship between authorial self‐fashioning, the material conditions of public drama, and the commodification of plays in print. The epistles, I would argue, stand at the same remove as prologues and epilogues; like them, the epistles occupy a liminal space between the stage and the page. (J.P.)