Abstract: The authorial presenter (e.g. Shakespeare’s Gower) on the Renaissance stage inherits from medieval theater the authority of the Expositor and the book and staff of the prompter; on the Renaissance English stage, he thus embodies the shift from narrative to performance. He authenticates the “dramatization” of the narrative source, while encouraging the spectator to think of the spectacle as a way to bring back to life, through a magical operation, the past that is preserved in the pages of books.
