Ben Jonson put a lot of emphasis on the poetical quality of his masques. He considered the libretto to be the essence and the most crucial part of the performance. The spectators and the masquers themselves assuredly thought otherwise as the spectacle would overshadow the mere content of a masque. Jonson's desire to acknowledge his work, rather than that of the architect, finally led to an argument between him and Inigo Jones and subsequently – as their cooperation ceased – to the end of production of the masques. In this essay I will outline some basic facts about masques and their production and environment, which led to this state of affairs, while focusing on the technical and performative, rather than poetical aspects.
When Queen Anne commanded Jonson to prepare an outstanding show which could precede her own, she clearly had in mind the blinding exquisite of the visible, in which the text would only serve as a point of departure – sort of an excuse – for that show. To create a flamboyant feast for the senses and not neglecting the soul was for Jonson a demanding task. By then he must have had some ideas of how his final product would look like and those ideas might have been partially based on previous works which Jonson must have known. John Meagher says that Jonhnson was in possession of a printed copy of Ballet Comique de la Reine Louise by Baltasar Beaujoyeulx presented in 1581, which “contained the text, the music an ample description of the performance and extensive comments by Beaujoyeulx and others” (Meagher 22). Ballet Comique was “the first court spectacle (…) integrating dance, poetry, music and design to convey a unified dramatic plot – which was derived from an episode in Homer's Odyssey” (Au 14). Such a novel patchwork-form gave Jonson more space for invention as it did not have to follow the three unities of time, place and action, as well as allowed – or even called for – more elaborate design. Jonson himself explains this innovation in the footnotes of the Masque of Queens: “How can I bring Persons of different ages to appear together, or why I join the living with dead? (…) Nothing is more proper; nothing more natural. For these all live … in their Fame” (1). The other work which Meagher mentions that might have influenced the shape of Jonson's masques is The Vision of Twelve Goddesses by Samuel Daniel. Again, this one of the few undamaged pre-Jonsonian English masques, “which Jonson certainly knew” was one of those highly successful and remarkable events that became “a standard for judgment of Ben Jonson's Masque of Blackness which appeared the following year (Meagher 11-12)”.
Ballet Comique – which was performed as part of a wedding ceremony at the French court - was a representation of the finesse and virtue of the royal family that not only greatly appealed to their pride, but also served as a display of perfection and supremacy of the King to the foreign traveling spectators. It was also “a political allegory describing the restoration of order after the civil wars and the establishment of peace and deeper unity in France” (Meagher 26). Additionally, “everybody knew that Jonson and Inigo Jones were both Catholic” like the protector Queen Anne, who – to quote Ross – appeared “an unpleasant and colorless person: all the more reason for Jonson's hyperbolic flattery”(Ross 170-171). Both Daniel and Jonson used the idea of carrying political notions in their masques, in a way to earn the King's support. The text on its own – in the form it was published – would not carry those meanings with the same power, and so, here comes in the performance again.
The performance of a masque was an extravagant celebration, combining elements of poetry, dance, music, costume and elaborate stage design. And, for example - in Masque of Beauty, although the text is short, Jonson supplied enough of it for 10 persons and all those persons had to be dressed properly: the flattery Ross mentions in his essay, was “conveyed through poetry and, just as emphatically, through symbolic dress”(Ross 171). Based on Thomas Knyvet's “accounts for the Queens signature”, Ross estimated the cost for the production of The Masque of Beauty to be £ 4000, which would equal around £ 160 000 in the modern currency (Ross 171, 173). Let us then look closer at what it was that cost so many pounds.
Why would Jonson combine music in his masques in the first place? Seeing the masque as a fusion of arts, parallel to the harmony of the universe, the music was not just an ornamental boost but - combined with the other arts employed in a masque - served as an expression of the philosophical principles shared by the noble of that era: it embodied the order of the country under the king's rule. The relation of music to the state's order is even more evident when we see the link that music has with praising the monarchy. In Jonson's masques, the songs worship the good and virtuous, the excellence of the ruler and his court. The sound of loud music scarifies the herd of hags in the Masque of Queens off the stage to introduce the House of Fame. This allegorical praiseworthiness would not have to be expressed explicitly by means of the text, as the sophisticated courtly audience would know perfectly all the nuances between the lines of the play.
As for the technical side of the music performance, not much is known for, apparently – as Meagher claims - “an English theoretical treatise on music is not to be found” (Meagher 76) Nevertheless, he also suggests that the masques contained “the new music” as the first in England:
The new school of music which sprang up in Italy at the beginning of seventeenth century (…) changed the massive polyphony which had been the chief glory of the previous century to the slight and easy monody, which gave free scope to the portrayal of dramatic situations” (qtd. in Meagher 77).
From this description we may assume that however important the music was, it clearly gave way to the visual spectacle, serving more as its strengthener - to spice up the show. The musicians would often take part on stage as well. We know that the authors of the music for Jonson's masques were such authorities as Alfonso Ferrabosco and Nicolas Lanier, who were both deeply influenced by the contemporary Italian music and its developments.
I would like to briefly look at the dance in masques as well. The “dancers” were not professionals as we consider them nowadays. Instead, the masques starred the King and/or the Queen, with their noble friends. Therefore, the expectations towards the choreography could not be as high as towards the text or stage design. The design of the chambers in which those amusements were performed allowed the audience to view the stage (or in the early days, the floor) from above, from the galleries around the chamber. We find in Ballet and Modern Dance that the performers merely followed geometrical figures on the dancing floor, which were often symbolic (Au, 11). No wonder that Jonson considered dance in his masques as something rather unworthy of carrying the profoundity and weightiness of his libretto. This dislike of his towards the bodily facets of the masques and the desire to put his poetical part above it, ultimately led to the complete cessation of any kind of performing of his masques, to the advantage of those more cooperative with Jones authors. But before this conflict escalated, Jonson was well conscious of the advantage of the fleshly and sensual side of the performance and used it to his advantage. And again there is a strong connection between dance and cosmic harmony (i.e. order of the state) throughout the centuries, and up till nowadays: “The dance was commonly thought to have arisen as an imitation of the regularity of the stars and planets , and neither Greek antiquity, nor the Renaissance ever lost sight of this origin” (Meagher 82). It is this allegorical correspondence that Jonson used his dancers for, in order to enhance the effect his plays would have on the viewers (and the masquers as well). Imitating the motion of heavens on the stage was once more a sign of praise for the monarch and his kingdom so that the poetic was paralleled with the cosmic order and harmony, which again did not have to be explicitly stated in the libretto. There is a proof of this metaphor of order in the stage directions of The masque of Queens: while “her majesty being set, (...) the hags begin to dance (which is an unusual ceremony (…) where sometimes they are vizarded or masqued) magical dance, full of preposterous change, and gesticulation”. The order is set, is in order, whereas the chaos is abnormal and filled with creepiness.
At this point, after outlining the most vivid components of staging a masques, I will proceed to last one - but not the least important whatsoever – namely, the light. The light plays the most significant role in the masques – both in the poetical and visual sense. The words associated with brightness and light have always been the symbols of knowledge, goodness, beauty and morality. In the Masque of Queens the use of light evokes the analogy between the Fame and the Anti-Fame, as Meagher asserts:
The hags (…) offended by “these bright Nights/ /of Honor,” attempt to “blast the light” with charms; but the appearance of Heroic Virtue and the bright House of Fame, they “fly the light,” leaving the scene to the “bright Beuie” of famous Queens who form the masque and to James, “that light, from whence [the Queen's] truth of spirit / Confesseth all the lustre of her Merit (Meagher 113).
He also explains in his book the two ways in which Jones used the visible light to give brightness to his poetical part. One of them was illuminating the performance hall with “an unusual and striking intensity (...) giving the brightness a symbolic value”. Another was “a massing of light around the figures who form the dramatic core, the main-masquers, at their first revelation” (Meagher 119). Due to the invention of the electricity, nowadays spectators can hardly appreciate the lighting effects of Inigo Jones. Regardless of the advancement of theatrical (not to mention film) special effects, it is interesting to look at how those “blasts of light” of an “unusual and striking intensity” illuminated the play.
Inigo Jones introduced a lot of technical innovations. Apart from the machinery – to which I will turn back later – the most notable was the invention of the system of glasses filled with watter that would reflect the light of candles and glimmer on the sparkling costumes of the masquers. We can find this information in The Age of Inigo Jones by James Lees-Milne, who also describes the advancement of this system in Luminalia: “the lights were still more carefully trained on the performers, and in the night scene wonderfully subdued by means of oil papers” (Lees-Milne 43).
Other significant novelties in the stage design introduced by Jones, about which we learn in Lees-Milne's book (42-43) were – unremarkable as might seem – painted curtains drawn to sides of the stage, which would then reveal another invention – a complete sea-scene. The truth is that till Jones' inventions, the stage design was limited to a couple of props placed in different parts of the floor, to which the performers would advance when the script demanded it. As Lees-Milne puts it: “Never before in England had a single scene been used in place of several distinct symbols simultaneously presented. The seascape remained throughout the masque, and all the acts took place before it” (42). Natural and obvious it may appear to a contemporary playgoer, this was not the case four hundred years ago. And if not for Jones' flying machinery, the scene change very likely would not have happened till much later. The machina versatalis, as Jonson used to call it (43), was probably the most significant for the future development of theater device invented by Jones. It allowed the actors to be mounted on a flying device, such as a cloud, suspended in the air, which could be turned or moved. It was further advanced by the use “Vitruvian system, which the Italian renaissance stage had first adopted, (…) enabling rapid and easy changes of scenes in the wings” (43). Apparently, as Lees-Milne claims, it didn't become popular at that time and its usefulness was for a long time discounted.
Taking the above points into consideration, it is not surprising that Jonson's audience assumed more favorable attitude towards the 'bodily', or the 'sensual' aspects of the show. Even when we consider the sheer amount of text – which was usually around a dozen pages – and how much time it would take to perform it in a show which “beginning late at night, went on for as many as four or five hours” (Au 11), we can see the libretto perhaps was not as principal as Jonson might have thought it. His use of lights and stage design in order to give “body” to the “soul” of his play, ironically overshadowed that grandiose “soul” which meant to be the core of the show and its finest part. His insistence on being recognized and appreciated as the main creator, finally led to his exclusion from the entertainment life of the court. Thus, paradoxically, Jones killed his own creation – the masque, or rather, its libretto, which in turn gave way to the more transient but also more sensual side – the performance.
Works Cited:
- Au, Susan. Ballet and Modern Dance. Thames & Hudson, 1988.
- Lees-Milne, James. The Age of Inigo Jones. B.T.Batsford LTD, 1953.
- Meagher, John C. Method and Meaning in Jonson's Masques. Notre Dame UP, 1966.
- Ross, Thomas W. Expenses for Ben Jonson's “The Masque of Beauty”. The Bulletin of the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, Vol. 23, No.4 (Dec., 1969), pp. 169-173
References:
(1) Jonson, Ben. The Masque of Queens. 1609
Ballet Comique – which was performed as part of a wedding ceremony at the French court - was a representation of the finesse and virtue of the royal family that not only greatly appealed to their pride, but also served as a display of perfection and supremacy of the King to the foreign traveling spectators. It was also “a political allegory describing the restoration of order after the civil wars and the establishment of peace and deeper unity in France” (Meagher 26). Additionally, “everybody knew that Jonson and Inigo Jones were both Catholic” like the protector Queen Anne, who – to quote Ross – appeared “an unpleasant and colorless person: all the more reason for Jonson's hyperbolic flattery”(Ross 170-171). Both Daniel and Jonson used the idea of carrying political notions in their masques, in a way to earn the King's support. The text on its own – in the form it was published – would not carry those meanings with the same power, and so, here comes in the performance again.
The performance of a masque was an extravagant celebration, combining elements of poetry, dance, music, costume and elaborate stage design. And, for example - in Masque of Beauty, although the text is short, Jonson supplied enough of it for 10 persons and all those persons had to be dressed properly: the flattery Ross mentions in his essay, was “conveyed through poetry and, just as emphatically, through symbolic dress”(Ross 171). Based on Thomas Knyvet's “accounts for the Queens signature”, Ross estimated the cost for the production of The Masque of Beauty to be £ 4000, which would equal around £ 160 000 in the modern currency (Ross 171, 173). Let us then look closer at what it was that cost so many pounds.
Why would Jonson combine music in his masques in the first place? Seeing the masque as a fusion of arts, parallel to the harmony of the universe, the music was not just an ornamental boost but - combined with the other arts employed in a masque - served as an expression of the philosophical principles shared by the noble of that era: it embodied the order of the country under the king's rule. The relation of music to the state's order is even more evident when we see the link that music has with praising the monarchy. In Jonson's masques, the songs worship the good and virtuous, the excellence of the ruler and his court. The sound of loud music scarifies the herd of hags in the Masque of Queens off the stage to introduce the House of Fame. This allegorical praiseworthiness would not have to be expressed explicitly by means of the text, as the sophisticated courtly audience would know perfectly all the nuances between the lines of the play.
As for the technical side of the music performance, not much is known for, apparently – as Meagher claims - “an English theoretical treatise on music is not to be found” (Meagher 76) Nevertheless, he also suggests that the masques contained “the new music” as the first in England:
The new school of music which sprang up in Italy at the beginning of seventeenth century (…) changed the massive polyphony which had been the chief glory of the previous century to the slight and easy monody, which gave free scope to the portrayal of dramatic situations” (qtd. in Meagher 77).
From this description we may assume that however important the music was, it clearly gave way to the visual spectacle, serving more as its strengthener - to spice up the show. The musicians would often take part on stage as well. We know that the authors of the music for Jonson's masques were such authorities as Alfonso Ferrabosco and Nicolas Lanier, who were both deeply influenced by the contemporary Italian music and its developments.
I would like to briefly look at the dance in masques as well. The “dancers” were not professionals as we consider them nowadays. Instead, the masques starred the King and/or the Queen, with their noble friends. Therefore, the expectations towards the choreography could not be as high as towards the text or stage design. The design of the chambers in which those amusements were performed allowed the audience to view the stage (or in the early days, the floor) from above, from the galleries around the chamber. We find in Ballet and Modern Dance that the performers merely followed geometrical figures on the dancing floor, which were often symbolic (Au, 11). No wonder that Jonson considered dance in his masques as something rather unworthy of carrying the profoundity and weightiness of his libretto. This dislike of his towards the bodily facets of the masques and the desire to put his poetical part above it, ultimately led to the complete cessation of any kind of performing of his masques, to the advantage of those more cooperative with Jones authors. But before this conflict escalated, Jonson was well conscious of the advantage of the fleshly and sensual side of the performance and used it to his advantage. And again there is a strong connection between dance and cosmic harmony (i.e. order of the state) throughout the centuries, and up till nowadays: “The dance was commonly thought to have arisen as an imitation of the regularity of the stars and planets , and neither Greek antiquity, nor the Renaissance ever lost sight of this origin” (Meagher 82). It is this allegorical correspondence that Jonson used his dancers for, in order to enhance the effect his plays would have on the viewers (and the masquers as well). Imitating the motion of heavens on the stage was once more a sign of praise for the monarch and his kingdom so that the poetic was paralleled with the cosmic order and harmony, which again did not have to be explicitly stated in the libretto. There is a proof of this metaphor of order in the stage directions of The masque of Queens: while “her majesty being set, (...) the hags begin to dance (which is an unusual ceremony (…) where sometimes they are vizarded or masqued) magical dance, full of preposterous change, and gesticulation”. The order is set, is in order, whereas the chaos is abnormal and filled with creepiness.
At this point, after outlining the most vivid components of staging a masques, I will proceed to last one - but not the least important whatsoever – namely, the light. The light plays the most significant role in the masques – both in the poetical and visual sense. The words associated with brightness and light have always been the symbols of knowledge, goodness, beauty and morality. In the Masque of Queens the use of light evokes the analogy between the Fame and the Anti-Fame, as Meagher asserts:
The hags (…) offended by “these bright Nights/ /of Honor,” attempt to “blast the light” with charms; but the appearance of Heroic Virtue and the bright House of Fame, they “fly the light,” leaving the scene to the “bright Beuie” of famous Queens who form the masque and to James, “that light, from whence [the Queen's] truth of spirit / Confesseth all the lustre of her Merit (Meagher 113).
He also explains in his book the two ways in which Jones used the visible light to give brightness to his poetical part. One of them was illuminating the performance hall with “an unusual and striking intensity (...) giving the brightness a symbolic value”. Another was “a massing of light around the figures who form the dramatic core, the main-masquers, at their first revelation” (Meagher 119). Due to the invention of the electricity, nowadays spectators can hardly appreciate the lighting effects of Inigo Jones. Regardless of the advancement of theatrical (not to mention film) special effects, it is interesting to look at how those “blasts of light” of an “unusual and striking intensity” illuminated the play.
Inigo Jones introduced a lot of technical innovations. Apart from the machinery – to which I will turn back later – the most notable was the invention of the system of glasses filled with watter that would reflect the light of candles and glimmer on the sparkling costumes of the masquers. We can find this information in The Age of Inigo Jones by James Lees-Milne, who also describes the advancement of this system in Luminalia: “the lights were still more carefully trained on the performers, and in the night scene wonderfully subdued by means of oil papers” (Lees-Milne 43).
Other significant novelties in the stage design introduced by Jones, about which we learn in Lees-Milne's book (42-43) were – unremarkable as might seem – painted curtains drawn to sides of the stage, which would then reveal another invention – a complete sea-scene. The truth is that till Jones' inventions, the stage design was limited to a couple of props placed in different parts of the floor, to which the performers would advance when the script demanded it. As Lees-Milne puts it: “Never before in England had a single scene been used in place of several distinct symbols simultaneously presented. The seascape remained throughout the masque, and all the acts took place before it” (42). Natural and obvious it may appear to a contemporary playgoer, this was not the case four hundred years ago. And if not for Jones' flying machinery, the scene change very likely would not have happened till much later. The machina versatalis, as Jonson used to call it (43), was probably the most significant for the future development of theater device invented by Jones. It allowed the actors to be mounted on a flying device, such as a cloud, suspended in the air, which could be turned or moved. It was further advanced by the use “Vitruvian system, which the Italian renaissance stage had first adopted, (…) enabling rapid and easy changes of scenes in the wings” (43). Apparently, as Lees-Milne claims, it didn't become popular at that time and its usefulness was for a long time discounted.
Taking the above points into consideration, it is not surprising that Jonson's audience assumed more favorable attitude towards the 'bodily', or the 'sensual' aspects of the show. Even when we consider the sheer amount of text – which was usually around a dozen pages – and how much time it would take to perform it in a show which “beginning late at night, went on for as many as four or five hours” (Au 11), we can see the libretto perhaps was not as principal as Jonson might have thought it. His use of lights and stage design in order to give “body” to the “soul” of his play, ironically overshadowed that grandiose “soul” which meant to be the core of the show and its finest part. His insistence on being recognized and appreciated as the main creator, finally led to his exclusion from the entertainment life of the court. Thus, paradoxically, Jones killed his own creation – the masque, or rather, its libretto, which in turn gave way to the more transient but also more sensual side – the performance.
Works Cited:
- Au, Susan. Ballet and Modern Dance. Thames & Hudson, 1988.
- Lees-Milne, James. The Age of Inigo Jones. B.T.Batsford LTD, 1953.
- Meagher, John C. Method and Meaning in Jonson's Masques. Notre Dame UP, 1966.
- Ross, Thomas W. Expenses for Ben Jonson's “The Masque of Beauty”. The Bulletin of the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, Vol. 23, No.4 (Dec., 1969), pp. 169-173
References:
(1) Jonson, Ben. The Masque of Queens. 1609