Introduction: Theaters of Pardoning

The introduction draws on theories of genre and existing work in early modern law and literature to define the attributes and explain the significance of theaters of pardoning. Demonstrating the surprisingly significant number of seventeenth-century English plays that end with pardons, the introduction identifies these forms of tragicomedy as theaters of pardoning. It also emphasizes how the historical interrelations among the institutions and actors of law, drama, and politics in seventeenth-century England brought conceptions of pardoning from theater to law court to palace and back.