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Foil
Key Examples in The Beggar’s Opera
Introduction
Explanation and Analysis—The Beggar and the Player:
The Beggar’s Opera is embedded within a frame story in which a player—or actor—and a beggar discuss the (fictional) circumstances in which the play was written and produced. This framing device provides commentary on the nature of the play and, more specifically, its satirical intentions. In the opening lines of the work, the Beggar apologizes to the audience for the various ways in which his opera departs from convention:
I hope I may be forgiven, that I have not made my Opera throughout unnatural, like those in vogue; for I have no Recitative: Excepting this, as I have consented to have neither Prologue nor Epilogue, it must be allow’d an Opera in all its forms. The Piece indeed hath been heretofore frequently represented by ourselves in our great Room at St. Giles’s, so that I cannot too often acknowledge your Charity in bringing it now on the Stage.
Related Themes:
Act 3, Scene 16
Explanation and Analysis—The Beggar and the Player:
The Beggar’s Opera is embedded within a frame story in which a player—or actor—and a beggar discuss the (fictional) circumstances in which the play was written and produced. This framing device provides commentary on the nature of the play and, more specifically, its satirical intentions. In the opening lines of the work, the Beggar apologizes to the audience for the various ways in which his opera departs from convention:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I hope I may be forgiven, that I have not made my Opera throughout unnatural, like those in vogue; for I have no Recitative: Excepting this, as I have consented to have neither Prologue nor Epilogue, it must be allow’d an Opera in all its forms. The Piece indeed hath been heretofore frequently represented by ourselves in our great Room at St. Giles’s, so that I cannot too often acknowledge your Charity in bringing it now on the Stage.
Related Themes:
