ABSTRACT
This section explains the nature and parameters of the study. It shows that the main aim is to highlight the main 19th-century stage genres relevant to W.S. Gilbert while still acknowledging his place in a comedic continuum, already discussed in an earlier volume, The Progress of Fun. The introduction references not so much Gilbert’s theories of theatre-comedy as his modes of construction, including overall planning but also internal techniques such as inversion, hyperbole, and bathos. This section stresses that Gilbert is both a ‘classic Victorian’ and a forerunner of later developments including the Theatre of the Absurd. In addition, he re-energizes earlier modes, thus being both timeless and time-bound and anticipating the future through the recycling by the present of the past.
