Anne Finch, Restoration Playwright

Abstract

The poet Anne Finch wrote and translated plays, play prologues, epilogues, and songs, and should thus be considered a Restoration playwright. That she has not been so regarded is due to her own gendered and classed self-effacement, critical bias against closet dramas, and modern-day scholars’ prioritization of her manuscript housed at Wellesley College, which is nontheatrical, over her manuscript at the Folger Shakespeare Library, which contains multiple plays, dramatic prologues and epilogues, and songs. An analysis of these texts demonstrates that Finch shares thematic and structural sensibilities with her Restoration colleagues, while a material examination of the Folger manuscript indicates that Finch envisioned her dramatic work in performance and publication.

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