Let us glance at a few of Shakespeare's openings, and consider at what
points he attacks his various themes. Of his comedies, all except one
begin with a simple conversation, showing a state of affairs from which
the crisis develops with more or less rapidity, but in which it is as
yet imperceptibly latent. In no case does he plunge into the middle of
his subject, leaving its antecedents to be stated in what is technically
called an "exposition." Neither in tragedy nor in comedy, indeed, was
this Shakespeare's method. In his historical plays he relied to some
extent on his hearers' knowledge of history, whether gathered from books
or from previous plays of the historical series; and where such
knowledge was not to be looked for, he would expound the situation in
good set terms, like those of a Euripidean Prologue. But the
chronicle-play is a species apart, and practically an extinct species:
we need not pause to study its methods. In his fictitious plays, with
two notable exceptions, it was Shakespeare's constant practice to bring
the whole action within the frame of the picture, opening at such a
point that no retrospect should be necessary, beyond what could be
conveyed in a few casual words.
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