Masques And Entertainments

Excerpt from Masques and Entertainments The Italian masque grew out of the Carnival, and was at first especially associated with the Feast of the Epiphany, old Christ mas Day, our Twelfth Day. The English custom of drawing Twelfth Night characters, that came down into this century, was in some sense a survival from the customs out of which our early masques arose. Before its general limitation to a few days before Ash Wednesday, Carnival began on the day after the Feast of Epiphany, and lasted until midnight on Shrove Tuesday, Lent beginning with Ash Wednesday. This whole time was, among the rich, 9. Time of feasts. The rich began at Epiphany their season of festivity; while those who had to earn their livings were content with their own limitation of the costly season to the last week before Lent. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The masque had a brief but splendid life as the dominant mode of entertainment at the early Stuart court, and it has increasingly come to be recognized as a genre offering a fascinating insight into the culture and politics of the early seventeenth century.This selection of 18 masque for Charles I, performed just before the outbreak of civil war. It also includes examples of entertainments performed on royal progresses, as well as one domestic masque.Court masques were extravagant multi-media happenings, imbued with often arcane allegorical programmes by writers and designers, and frequently commenting on tipical political issues. In this, the most substantial available selection, readers are offered the annotation necessary for understandingthe complexities of the individual texts.Under the General Editorship of Michael Cordner, of the University of York, the texts of the plays have been newly edited and are presented with modernized spelling and punctuation. In addition to the detailed notes there is a scholarly introduction, making this edition invaluable to students ofRenaissance drama and court culture.

"Death proves them all but toyes": Nashe's unidealising show / Elizabeth Cook -- "In those figures which they seeme": Samuel Daniel's Tethys' festival / John Pitcher -- Music, masque and meaning in The tempest / David Lindley -- Sounding to present occasions: Jonson's masques of 1620-5 / Sara Pearl -- To that secure fix'd state': the function of the Caroline masque form / Jennifer Chibnall -- The reformation of the masque / David Norbrook -- The present aid of this occasion': the setting of Comus / John Creaser -- Location and meaning in masque, morality, and royal entertainment / Helen Cooper -- The French element in Inigo Jones's masque designs* / John Peacock -- Dryden's Albion and Albanius: the apotheosis of Charles II / Paul Hammond.