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A woman appeared on the English stage on this day in 1660 (smithsonianmag.com)
63 points by pepys 34 days ago | hide | past | favorite | 13 comments



From a few months later:

https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1661/01/03/

and after that to the Theatre, where was acted “Beggars’ Bush,” it being very well done; and here the first time that ever I saw women come upon the stage.

and a few years later: https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1664/10/04/

Thence-setting all them at home, I home with my wife and Mercer, vexed at my losing my time and above 20s. in money, and neglecting my business to see so bad a play. To-morrow they told us should be acted, or the day after, a new play, called “The Parson’s Dreame,” acted all by women.

tangentially, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/oct/18/nell-gw...


I love that 17th century word order.

"Tommorow they told us should be acted, or the day after, a new play..."

It's like declaring a bunch of helper variables before getting to the main body of a function.


I wondered if it was partly the effect of stream-of-consciousness writing without access to a backspace key (or even graphite eraser)?


My instinct was that it was more of a "germanic" sentence structure, but I am rusty on these things and there's enough bad amateur linguistics on the internet for me to add to it.

Or maybe we're both right? Could be a co-relation.


English doesn't have a set word order anyway, its just that nobody bothers to determine the rules for it since whatever system we've arrived at is far more arcane than classically "analytic" languages.

The analytic/synthetic divide doesn't make sense anyway, it's just pulling from Kant and a poor reading of him at that.


It’s still modern English :D


to me it’s a hallmark of a writing style that understands itself to be written speech.


this is why I come here.

It's crazy that it took so long for women to walk upon the stage, but even crazier, that once they did, they put on entire plays acted by only women in such short a time.


England was a bit of a backwater, though.

Charles II also spent almost his entire adult life in the Netherlands and France where the arts were much more advanced. Theaters being banned for ~20 years also meant that they had begin do pretty much everything from scratch


[stub for offtopicness]


The headline is missing a critical "for the first time":

A Woman Appeared on the English Stage for the First Time on This Day in 1660, Transforming the World of Theater Forever


It was definitely implied. Wonder if AI can fill in the information like humans who know history.


I wonder if AI can make HN comments more creative than inserting AI into everything.




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