JEREMY COLLIER JEREMY COLLIER The business of Plays
JEREMY COLLIER
JEREMY COLLIER “The business of Plays is to recommend Virtue and discountenance Vice; to shew the Uncertainty of humane greatness, the suddain Turns of Fate, and the Unhappy Conclusions of Violence and Injustice: 'Tis to expose the Singularities of Pride and Fancy, to make Folly and Falsehood contemptible and to bring every thing that is Ill Under Infamy and Neglect. ”
SUSANNA CENTLIVRE Preface to The Platonick Lady (1707) “To all the Generous Encouragers of Female Ingenuity, this Play is Humbly Dedicated. Gentlemen and Ladies; My Muse chose to make this Universal Address, hoping, among the numerous Crowd, to find some Souls Great enough to protect her against the Carping Malice of the Vulgar World; who think it a proof of their Sense, to diſlike every thing that is writ by Women. I was the more inducedd to this General Application, from the Usage I have met on all sides. A Play secretly introduc'd to the House, whilst the Author remains unknown, is approv'd by every Body: The Actors cry it up, and are in expectation of a great Run; the Bookseller of a Second Edition, and the Scribler of a Sixth Night: But if by chance the Plot's discover'd, and the Brat found Fatherless, immediately it flags in the Opinion of those that extoll'd it before, and the Bookſeller falls in his Price, with this Reaſon only, It is a Woman's. Thus they alter their Judgment, by the Eſteem they have for the Author, tho' the Play is still the ſame. […] And why this Wrath against the Women’s Works? Perhaps you'll answer, because they meddle with things out of their Sphere: But I say, no; for since the Poet is born, why not a Woman as well as a Man? ”
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