Everything about The Masque totally explained
The
masque was a form of festive
courtly entertainment which flourished in sixteenth and early seventeenth century Europe, though it was developed earlier in
Italy, in forms including the
intermedio. (A public version of the masque was the
pageant.) Masque involved music and dancing, singing and acting, within an elaborate
stage design, in which the architectural framing and costumes might be designed by a renowned architect, to present a deferential allegory flattering to the patron. Professional actors and musicians were hired for the speaking and singing parts. Often, the masquers who didn't speak or sing were courtiers: James I's Queen Consort,
Anne of Denmark, frequently danced with her ladies in masques between 1603 and 1611, and
Henry VIII and
Charles I performed in the masques at their courts. In the tradition of masque,
Louis XIV danced in
ballets at
Versailles with music by
Lully.
Development
The masque tradition developed from the elaborate pageants and courtly shows of
ducal Burgundy in the late Middle Ages. Masques were typically a complimentary offering to the prince among his guests and might combine pastoral settings, mythological fable, and the dramatic elements of ethical debate. There would invariably be some political and social application of the allegory. Such pageants often celebrated a birth, marriage, change of ruler or a
Royal Entry and invariably ended with a tableau of bliss and concord. Masque imagery tended to be drawn from Classical rather than Christian sources, and the artifice was part of the charm. Masque thus lent itself to
Mannerist treatment in the hands of master designers like
Giulio Romano or
Inigo Jones. The
New Historians, in works like the essays of Bevington and Holbrook's
The Politics of the Stuart Court Masque (1998), have pointed out the political subtext of masques. At times, the political subtext wasn't far to seek:
The Triumph of Peace, put on with a large amount of parliament-raised money by
Charles I, caused great offence to the
Puritans.
Catherine de' Medici's court festivals, often even more overtly political, were among the most spectacular entertainments of her day, although the "
intermezzi" of the
Medici court in Florence could rival them.
Dumbshow
In English theatre tradition, a
dumbshow is a masque-like interlude of silent
pantomime usually with
allegorical content that refers to the occasion of a play or its theme, the most famous being the pantomime played out in
Hamlet (III.ii). Dumbshows might be a moving spectacle, like a procession, as in
Thomas Kyd's
The Spanish Tragedy (1580s), or they might form a pictorial tableau, as one in the Shakespeare collaboration,
Pericles, Prince of Tyre (III,i) — a tableau that's immediately explicated at some length by the poet-narrator,
Gower. Dumbshows were a Medieval element that continued to be popular in early
Elizabethan drama, but by the time
Pericles (c. 1607–08) or
Hamlet (c. 1600–02) were staged, they were perhaps quaintly old-fashioned: “What means this, my lord?” is Ophelia's reaction. In English masques, purely musical interludes might be accompanied by a dumbshow.
Of all the arts of the Renaissance, the masque is the artistic form most alien to audiences today. The most outstanding
humanists, poets and artists of the day, in the full intensity of their creative powers, devoted themselves to producing masques; and until the Puritans closed the English theaters in 1642, the masque was the highest artform in England. But because of its ephemeral nature, not a lot of documentation related to masques remains, and much of what is said about the production and enjoyment of masques is still part speculation.
Origins
The masque has its origins in a folk tradition where masked players would unexpectedly call on a nobleman in his hall, dancing and bringing gifts on certain nights of the year, or celebrating dynastic occasions. The rustic presentation of "Pyramus and Thisbe" as a wedding entertainment in Shakespeare's
A Midsummer Night's Dream offers a familiar example. Spectators were invited to join in the dancing. At the end, the players would take off their masks to reveal their identities.
England
In England, Tudor court masques developed from earlier
guisings, where a masked allegorical figure would appear and address the assembled company— providing a theme for the occasion— with musical accompaniment; masques at
Elizabeth's court emphasized the concord and unity between Queen and Kingdom. A descriptive narrative of a processional masque is the masque of the Seven Deadly Sins in
Edmund Spenser's
The Faerie Queene (Book i, Canto IV). Later, in the court of James I, narrative elements of the masque became more significant. Plots were often on classical or allegorical themes, and were usually acted out by amateurs. At the end, the audience would join in a final dance.
Ben Jonson wrote a number of masques with stage design by
Inigo Jones. Their works are usually thought of as the most significant in the form. Sir
Philip Sidney also wrote masques.
Shakespeare wrote a masque-like interlude in
The Tempest, understood by modern scholars to have been heavily influenced by the masque texts of Ben Jonson and the stagecraft of Inigo Jones. There is also a masque sequence in his
Henry VIII.
John Milton's
Comus (with music by
Henry Lawes) is described as a masque, though it's generally reckoned a
pastoral play.
Reconstructions of Stuart masques have been few and far between. Part of the problem is that only texts survive complete; there's no complete music, only fragments, so no authoritative performance can be made without reconstruction.
The English
semi-opera which developed in the latter part of the 17th century, a form in which
John Dryden and
Henry Purcell collaborated, borrows some elements from the masque and further elements from the contemporary courtly
French opera of
Jean-Baptiste Lully.
Eighteenth-century masques were less frequently staged. "
Rule, Britannia!" started out as part of
Alfred, a masque about
Alfred the Great co-written by
James Thomson and
David Mallet which was first performed at
Cliveden, country house of
Frederick, Prince of Wales. It remains among the best-known British
patriotic songs up to the present, while the masque of which it was originally part is only remembered by specialist historians.
20th century
In the twentieth century,
Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote
Job, a masque for dancing (premiered 1930), although the work is closer to a
ballet than a masque as it was originally understood. His designating it a masque was to indicate that the modern
choreography typical when he wrote the piece wouldn't be suitable.
Constant Lambert also wrote a piece he called a masque,
Summer's Last Will and Testament, for orchestra, chorus and baritone. His title he took from
Thomas Nash, whose masque was probably first presented before the
Archbishop of Canterbury, perhaps at his London seat,
Lambeth Palace, in 1592.
Further Information
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