The prince of darkness is a gentleman
Redeeming Love“The prince of darkness is a gentleman” is the Shakespeare-attributed epigraph to the prologue of Redeeming Love. Placed above the opening location and date, New England, 1835, it gives the story’s first note a pointed contradiction: darkness can present itself in the manners of a gentleman.
Placement and Attribution
The line appears as the prologue’s opening epigraph, followed by Shakespeare’s name and the setting, New England in 1835. It functions as a threshold into the narrative rather than as dialogue spoken by a character; the supplied passage does not identify a speaker or explain the quotation’s source beyond its attribution.
Meaning and Narrative Effect
The phrase joins a threatening figure, the prince of darkness, to the social identity of a gentleman. That collision makes respectability an uncertain guide to character: menace may be concealed beneath civility. As the novel’s opening frame, the epigraph primes readers to attend to the gap between appearance and danger, while the brief excerpt leaves its full application to the unfolding story.
