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Learn about the purpose and significance of a prologue in literary works. Explore examples from Greek and Elizabethan drama, as well as prose works like Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Discover how prologues can provide background information, introduce characters, and establish themes or morals. (*Character limit reached*)
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What is a prologue? • An introductory section of a play, speech, or other literary work. • It is also applied to the performer who makes an introductory speech in a play • It gives a summary to the audience and they decided whether to watch the play or not. (Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms)
What is a prologue? • Sometimes referred to as a preface which generally gives information to the reader or audience, assisting in the ability to understand what is to follow in the main body of the work. • A prologue may introduce the setting, preview the characters, or establish a theme or moral for the work. Examples of this can be found in Greek and Elizabethan drama. • In a play, a prologue often takes the form of a character’s monologue or dialogue.
Origin of prologue • In Greek tragedy, the prologue is the opening section of a drama that precedes the first choral ode. • In the play Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, the prologue is presented as dialogue between Oedipus, the Priests, and Kreon, and establishes that the plague in Thebes will end as soon as Laios’s murderer is found. This precedes the opening hymn of the Chorus that appeals to the gods.
More about prologue • While many may consider a prologue a literary device used only in plays, it is also often seen in prose works. • In fact, prologues in literary prose can be traced as far back as Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales which includes prologues that provide background information and character sketches for the tales.
Writing in the 14th century, Geoffrey Chaucer may have been the first English poet to use the couplet regularly. The General Prologue to his Canterbury Tales is written in rhyming couplets, as are some of the stories in the collection. • Prologues may be written by the author of the work, or may be contributed by another writer who uses this introduction as a way of presenting and recommending a literary work.
A unique literary device… • Which is quite commonly use in Elizabethan plays • Nonetheless out of the 30 plus plays by Shakespeare, only two are known to have prologue: • Henry V • Romeo and Juliet* * The plays starts with 14 line prologue in the form of a sonnet, spoken by a chorus
Prologue from Romeo and Juliet Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life; Whole misadventured piteous overthrows Do with their death bury their parents' strife. The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love, And the continuance of their parents' rage, Which, but their children's end, nought could remove, Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage; The which if you with patient ears attend, What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend. (Act 1, Scene 1)
