Story within a story, Story within a story - Play within a play, Story within a story - Story within a story within a story, Frame story, Parable, List of fictional media companies and events, Show-within-a-show, Fictional fictional character
ARTICLES RELATED TO Story within a story - Play within a play
This dramatic device was apparently first used by Thomas Kyd in The Spanish Tragedy around 1587, where it forms the spectacular resolution of the story. Kyd is also assumed to have used it in his lost Hamlet (the so-called Ur-Hamlet). In The Spanish Tragedy, Hieronimo is so convinced of the far-reaching consequences of his "revelation" that he predicts it will bring about the "fall of Babylon". In his use of the play within the play, Kyd seems to take Aristotle's idea ...
Occasionally a story may include within itself a story within a story. This is almost never done of its own accord (though it does happen, as exemplified below), but usually in some other context.
For example, plays such as I Hate Hamlet or movies such as A Midwinter's Tale are about a production of Hamlet, which in turn includes a production of The Murder of Gonzago (or The Mouse-trap), so we have a story (The Murder of Gozago) within a story (Hamlet) within a story (A Midwinter's T ...
