Probably the last of Lyly's comedies,

stands aside from the dramatist's previous compositions in that it is written largely in verse rather than euphuistic prose. The Prologue explicitly defines the play in terms of “a poet's dream” (my emphasis), announcing it as “the first he had in Phoebus' holy bower”, though “not the last, unless the first displease” (lines 17-19). The plot is also presented as innovatory, “a point beyond the ancient theoric” (line 3), in that it substitutes a woman for the conventional man in the moon, charting the process by which Pandora (the title figure), created perfect by Nature as a companion for a group of Utopian shepherds, becomes “idle, mutable, / Forgetful, foolish, fickle, frantic, mad” (V.i.307-8) through the…

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Citation: Scragg, Leah. "The Woman in the Moon". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 June 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=8194, accessed 26 November 2024.]

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