Henry Fielding, Eurydice Hissed or a Word to the Wise

Thomas R. Cleary (University of British Columbia)
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This one-act farce opened at Fielding’s “Little Theatre” in the Haymarket on 13 April 1737, as an afterpiece to Fielding’s

The Historical Register for 1736

, just as the passage through the legislature of the Stage Licensing Act that would close Fielding’s theatre in June and exile him from the stage neared completion. Like the play it accompanied, it employs the “rehearsal format” in imitation of

The Rehearsal

(1671), the much admired masterwork of the Duke of Buckingham. This format here gets a very original and comically self-mocking twist in that what is rehearsed on the “Haymarket” stage by the Haymarket actors (on the Haymarket stage by those actors playing themselves, in and out of their roles) before a three-person “audience” consisting of Spatter, a…

996 words

Citation: Cleary, Thomas R.. "Eurydice Hissed or a Word to the Wise". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 23 April 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=15737, accessed 19 March 2024.]

15737 Eurydice Hissed or a Word to the Wise 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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