The Seventeenth-Century Court Masque (Tara Olivero)
A masque is a tradition of court
entertainment that became especially prominent during the reigns of the Tudors
and Stuarts. It was performed either at court or at a royal or noble residence
in order to either honor a particular noble or to glorify the court in general,
and the audiences were elite and invitation-only. Action would take place in
the middle of the floor of the residence’s main hall, with room for the stage,
machinery for the set and special effects, space for the audience, and an
elevated seat for the king directly across from the center of the stage.
Masques were occasionally used to celebrate state occasions or marriages as
well. Reliant on choreography by performers in masks, masques sometimes invited
certain audience members to participate as well, especially near the end of the
performance. This breaking of the fourth wall “blurs the line between
performance and reality, making allegory and symbolism significantly more
suggestive” as the audience members become directly involved in the exaltation
of the court and monarchy (Hull et. al).
Under Elizabeth I, masques tended
to focus on literary conventions of the time such as the inclusion of
Petrarchan sonnets and classical references. Masques were also a staple of
court entertainment under King James I, who didn’t participate in the masques
but attended as an audience member. However, his wife, Anne, participated
frequently and commissioned masques for political purposes, especially from Ben
Jonson, the most popular court masque writer from 1605 to 1625. This was not
only because of the quality of his masques but because of the new advancements
he added to the art form.
Whereas masques previous to his
time were generally either “wholly literary and dramatic or wholly
choreographic and theatrical,” Ben Jonson advanced the masque tradition by
combining these two options to create masques that were both spectacular and
meaningful. The stage design of court masques played into this, especially once
he collaborated with the neoclassical architect Inigo Jones in order to design
the sets. The two men eventually disagreed on the importance of spectacle
versus the poetry of the text and parted ways. When Charles I took the throne,
Jonson’s masques dropped in popularity, most likely because “the Carolinian
court seemed to prefer more elaborate masques than the Jacobean court,”
although Jones remained popular as a masque designer (Hull et. al). Ben Jonson
is also credited with developing the idea of the “anti-masque,” in which comic
or grotesque characters are included in the drama as foils to the main
characters. This added additional layers of meaning to the story and further
elevated the literary art form.
At what is considered the height
of the genre’s development, masques included a poetic prologue, one or more
anti-masques, the main masque, revels (in which the audience participated in
the dancing), and an epilogue, in addition to the costuming and sets. The
actual script of the masque might only be a few pages, but the performance of
the text plus choreography could take hours. They were also inordinately
expensive because the performance of one masque would have to employ the
writer, designer, music arranger, professional musicians, and dancing
instructors. The lavish costumes were the bulk of the cost, however, as fabrics
were disproportionately expensive at the time. The machinery of the sets were
often elaborate as well, with revolving sets (called machina versatilis) or
sliding sets (scena ductilis) that would move to seamlessly reveal entirely new
scenery. Other interesting production elements could include a fly gallery (for
aerial ballet and stunts), people who could descend from scenery above,
masquers arriving in set pieces on wheels, and more. Lighting resources were
also experimented with, with lighting coming from candles, torches, color
projected through colored glass bottles, light created by burning camphor in
water, light refracted by silver paint on the sets, and more. The budget for
most masques in the Jacobean era was around £2,000, which would be the
equivalent of roughly $800,000 today (assuming the conversion I used was even
close to correct). Since masques were how the monarchy legitimized themselves
and enforced their own importance, they had no problem spending the money.
Jonson is credited as the author
of at least thirty court masques, most of which were only performed once. The
Dyce Collection at the National Art Library (in conjunction with the Victoria
and Albert Museum) houses many of his original texts. This is helpful for
scholars because the texts of the masques often included the date of the
performance, the reason for the masque commission (whether it be for a holiday
like Christmas, a marriage, or otherwise), and a list of which aristocrats
performed which parts. The texts, which were printed and sold as quartos and
also reprinted in folio collections of Jonson’s works, often included detailed
notes about the performance elements of the masque that were not evident in the
text alone. For example, one note in Hymenai
states: “The Song ended, they daunced forth in Paires, and each Paire with a
varied and noble grace; to a rare and full Musique of twelve Lutes” (Sillitoe).
Jonson’s first masque performed
at Whitehall, The Masque of Blackness,
is regarded as being especially important, as is the masque that it was printed
with, The Masque of Beauty. Queen
Anne performed the main role in The
Masque of Blackness, which involved black face on the part of the
performers and aristocratic women playing even male roles. More information
about his specific masques can be found through the links below.
Sources:
Butler, Martin. “The Court
Masque.” The Cambridge Edition of the
Works of Ben Jonson Online. http://universitypublishingonline.org/cambridge/benjonson/k/essays/court_msq_essay/1/
Hull, Helen, with Meg Pearson and
Erin Sadlack. “A Maske Project.” The Maryland Institute for Technology in the
Humanities. https://mith.umd.edu/comus/final/cegenre.htm.
Sillitoe, Peter. “Ben Jonson and
Masquing Culture at the Jacobean Court.” ShaLT Collection Enhancement Report
No. 4, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2012.
http://shalt.dmu.ac.uk/media/uploads/documents/reports/cer-4.pdf
Image credit:
Presentation link:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1w2cu8Ergm3F59_7lNDEUQIesYLr6EFNnuqqmOyccpn8/edit?usp=sharing
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