''The Masque of Queens, Celebrated From the House of Fame'' is one of the earlier works in the series of

masque The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment that flourished in 16th- and early 17th-century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio (a public version of the masque was the pageant). A masque ...

s that

Ben Jonson Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for t ...

composed for the

House of Stuart The House of Stuart, originally spelt Stewart, was a royal house of Scotland, England, Ireland and later Great Britain. The family name comes from the office of High Steward of Scotland, which had been held by the family progenitor Walter fi ...

in the early 17th century. Performed at

Whitehall Palace The Palace of Whitehall (also spelt White Hall) at Westminster was the main residence of the English monarchs from 1530 until 1698, when most of its structures, except notably Inigo Jones's Banqueting House of 1622, were destroyed by fire. Hen ...

on 2 February 1609, it marks a notable development in the masque form, in that Jonson defines and elaborates the anti-masque for the first time in its pages.

Masque development

In his preceding masques, Jonson had been experimenting with elements of sharper opposition and variety: ''

The Masque of Blackness ''The Masque of Blackness'' was an early Jacobean era masque, first performed at the Stuart Court in the Banqueting Hall of Whitehall Palace on Twelfth Night, 6 January 1605. It was written by Ben Jonson at the request of Anne of Denmark, the ...

'' ( 1605) and ''

The Masque of Beauty ''The Masque of Beauty'' was a courtly masque written by Ben Jonson, and performed in London's Whitehall Palace on 10 January 1608. It inaugurated the refurbished banquesting hall of the palace (the predecessor of Inigo Jones' building). It was ...

'' (

1608 Events January–June * January – In the Colony of Virginia, Powhatan releases Captain John Smith. * January 2 – The first of the Jamestown supply missions returns to the Colony of Virginia with Christopher Newport comman ...

), both written for and featuring Queen Anne, form a contrasting and complementary pairing; ''

Hymenaei ''Hymenaei,'' or ''The Masque of Hymen,'' was a masque written by Ben Jonson for the marriage of Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex, and Lady Frances Howard, daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, and performed on their wedding day, 5 January 1606 ...

'' (

1606 Events January–June * January 24 – Gunpowder Plot: The trial of Guy Fawkes and other conspirators, for plotting against Parliament and James I of England, begins. * January 29 – Pedro Fernandes de Queirós discovers the Pi ...

) contained two contrasting sets of masquers; and ''

The Hue and Cry After Cupid ''The Hue and Cry After Cupid,'' or ''A Hue and Cry After Cupid,'' also ''Lord Haddington's Masque'' or ''The Masque at Lord Haddington's Marriage,'' or even ''The Masque With the Nuptial Songs at the Lord Viscount Haddington's Marriage at Cour ...

'' (1608) featured twelve boy torchbearers "in antic attire." In the case of ''The Masque of Queens'', Jonson writes that Queen Anne "had commanded me to think on some dance or show that might precede hers and have the place of a foil or false masque...." Jonson responded with a dance for a dozen female figures "in the habit of hags or witches...the opposites to good Fame...," to supply "a spectacle of strangeness...."

The show

A mistress witch and her eleven disciples all dance, then each witch testifies her crimes and outrages to her mistress, before they fall once again into "a magical dance, full of preposterous change and gesticulation." Their antics are interrupted and dispelled by the intrusion of the masque proper: the House of Fame is displayed, with twelve virtuous Queens, their apotheosis being "Bel-Anna." In addition to

Anne Anne, alternatively spelled Ann, is a form of the Latin female given name Anna. This in turn is a representation of the Hebrew Hannah, which means 'favour' or 'grace'. Related names include Annie. Anne is sometimes used as a male name in the ...

, the roles of the Queens were filled by eleven ladies of the court: * The Countess of Arundel * The Countess of Derby * The Countess of Huntingdon * The Countess of Bedford * The Countess of Essex * The Countess of Montgomery * Viscountess of Cranbourne * Lady Elizabeth Guilford * Lady Anne Winter * Lady Windsore (wife of the 6th

Baron Windsor Earl of Plymouth is a title that has been created three times: twice in the Peerage of England and once in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. History The first creation was in 1675 for Charles FitzCharles, one of the dozens of illegitima ...

; these three were daughters of

the Earl ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

and Countess of Worcester) *

Lady Anne Clifford Lady Anne Clifford, Countess of Dorset, Pembroke and Montgomery, ''suo jure'' 14th Baroness de Clifford (30 January 1590 – 22 March 1676) was an English peeress. In 1605 she inherited her father's ancient barony by writ and became ''suo jure'' ...

In this and the masques that followed at Court, the characters in the masque proper were generally "personated" by members of the Court; but the undignified anti-masque roles were filled by professional actors from the organized companies.

Significance

Jonson's use of witches in the anti-masque is an interesting commentary on the

witch craze A witch-hunt, or a witch purge, is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft. The classical period of witch-hunts in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America took place in the Early Modern per ...

of the era. More generally, the invention of the anti-masque shaped the art form of the masque for the remainder of its life. Some modern critics, approaching the masque from a more skeptical if not jaundiced perspective than that of its creators and participants, see the anti-masque as a subversion of the surface intent of the performance. ("But this antimasque quite eclipses its masque. The queens are mere wax-works after the witches" — the verdict of ''The Cambridge History of English and American Literature''.) In the end, the disorderly and disruptive forces of the anti-masque are always driven off by a re-established order (which is always "the established order"); but that order is presented in a hyper-idealized style that contrasts sharply with the flawed and limited humans who are enacting the parts (and the courtiers and other dependants in the audience know those flaws and limits all too well). In this interpretation, the anti-masque undermines the intention of the performance, giving it an effect opposite to the one intended. In the anti-masque, the Stuarts are, perhaps, unwittingly subverting their authority.

Texts

''The Masque of Queens'' was published soon after its performance, by the command of Crown Prince Henry, with a dedication to the Crown Prince. The work was entered into the

Stationers' Register The Stationers' Register was a record book maintained by the Stationers' Company of London. The company is a trade guild given a royal charter in 1557 to regulate the various professions associated with the publishing industry, including print ...

on February 22, 1609, and the edition that followed was printed by Nicholas Okes for the booksellers Richard Bonian and Henry Walley. After its initial

quarto Quarto (abbreviated Qto, 4to or 4º) is the format of a book or pamphlet produced from full sheets printed with eight pages of text, four to a side, then folded twice to produce four leaves. The leaves are then trimmed along the folds to produc ...

printing in 1609, ''The Masque of Queens'' was one of the fourteen masques included by Jonson in the 1616 folio collection of his Works. The work also exists in a manuscript in Jonson's hand, now Royal MS. 18 in the collection of the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

.British Library
/ref>

References

* Chambers, E. K. ''The Elizabethan Stage.'' 4 Volumes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923. * Orgel, Stephen, ed. ''Ben Jonson: Complete Masques''. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1969.

External links

''The Masque of Queens'', online text.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Masque Of Queens, The Masques by Ben Jonson English Renaissance plays 1609 plays