“A tragicomedy is not so called in respect of mirth and killing, but in respect it wants deaths, which is enough to make it no tragedy, yet brings some near it, which is enough to make it no comedy.”

A concise explanation of the distinctive balance between tragic and comic elements in tragicomedy · Preface, To the Reader

• Form
• Humour
• Theatre

“Thus much I hope will serve to justify my poem, and make you understand it; to teach you more for nothing, I do not know that I am in conscience bound.”

A witty assertion of the author's limits when confronted with readers who have misunderstood his work · Preface, To the Reader

• Readers
• Wit
• Writing

“Understand a pastoral to be a representation of shepherds and shepherdesses with their actions and passions, which must be such as may agree with their natures.”

Defending the importance of plausibility and natural characterisation in pastoral drama · Preface, To the Reader

• Character
• Nature
• Writing

“If you be not reasonably assured of your knowledge in this kind of poem, lay down the book, or read this, which I would wish had been the prologue.”

A characteristically direct invitation to readers to question their assumptions before judging a literary form · Preface, To the Reader

• Judgement
• Knowledge
• Reading