No Epilogue, I Pray You

Abstract

Conventionally, the highest-ranking personage onstage retains the privilege of the final word; in Shakespeare, the custom is honored more in the breach than the observance. In defiance of decorum and without rhyme or reason, the unruly likes of Puck, Feste, and Falstaff return to make the denouement all the more discombobulating. Shakespeare’s epilogues tend to overflow the boundaries rather than draw the line, a phenomenon compounded when the epilogue is delegated to the fool.