Abstract
Jacobean revenge tragedy, with its turbulent, bloody and uncertain topos, might be thought to have little relationship in terms either of dramatic method or of philosophical concerns with the masque of the court of James I, a dramatic genre of ceremonial serenity and metaphysical certainties. The origins of these two forms of drama were different, as were the purposes they were designed to serve and the audiences for which they were written. Masques were the highly wrought and visually splendid creation serving a celebratory and idealising function within the narrow confines of the court, while revenge tragedy, though also sometimes performed at court, had to satisfy the demand for popular, frequently satirical drama of the broader audiences in the public and coterie theatres. However, they were both ultimately the products of the same political state and literary culture, and many of the writers of tragedies in the period were also writers of royal masques.1 There is also the fact that many tragedies contain masques as part of their action, either dramatised within the plays or at least referred to as an integral part of the narrative.
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Notes
Stephen Orgel, The Illusion of Power (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1975) p. 38.
Discussions of this inconsistency in the characterisation of Bosola include C. G. Thayer, ‘The Ambiguity of Bosola’, Studies in Philology, LIV (1957);
I. Ribner, Jacobean Tragedy: The Quest for Moral Order (London: Methuen, 1979) pp. 110–16.
For an interpretation of the preoccupation with the macabre in one play, see S. Schoenbaum, ’The Revenger’s Tragedy: Jacobean Dance of Death’, Modern Language Quarterly, XV (1954) 201–7.
See L. G. Salingar, ’The Revenger’s Tragedy and the Morality Tradition’, Scrutiny, VI (1938) 402–24.
See G. P. Gooch and H. J. Laski, English Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1898) p. 61.
Lists of plays performed at court may be found in M. Steele, Plays and Masques at Court, 1558–1642 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1926);
G. E. C. Bentley, The Jacobean and Caroline Stage (London: Oxford University Press, 1941) pp. 94, 173, 194, 213, 249, 299, 322 and 336.
Several writers, including Jonson and Marston, either suffered penalties under both Elizabeth and James, or took active steps to avoid it by modifying what they wrote. Fulke Greville destroyed his tragedy Antony and Cleopatra for fear of official retribution. For accounts of the sensitivity of Elizabeth and James to the subject matter of literature and drama, see D. Bevington, Tudor Drama and Politics (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960) pp. 8–9, 12–13;
J. Goldberg, James I and the Politics of Literature (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983) pp. 1–3.
An account of the corruption and prodigality of the Jacobean court can be found in G. P. V. Akrigg, Jacobean Pageant or the Court of James I (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1962) chs 14 and 17.
See L. C. Knights, Drama and Society in the Age of Jonson (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1962) pp. 267–74.
A contemporary comment on James’s chastity with women and his predilection for handsome young men is to be found in Sir John Oglander, A Royalist’s Notebook, ed. Francis Bamford (London: Constable, 1936) pp. 174 and 196.
Caroline Bingham also discusses James and his favourites in James I of England (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1981) pp. 76–87.
See L. Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500–1800 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979) pp. 152–4.
Jonathan Dollimore discusses the demystification of state power in The White Devil in his Radical Tragedy (Brighton: Harvester, 1984) pp. 231–46.
Quoted in R. Strong, Art and Power: Renaissance Festivals, 1450–1650 (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 1984) p. 20. The chapter entitled ‘Removed Mysteries’ (pp. 20–41) deals with the mystification of power in masques and festivals.
That the drive for revenge is in itself a form of madness is argued in C. A. and E. S. Hallett, The Revenger’s Madness (Lincoln, Nebr.: University of Nebraska Press, 1980).
See S. P. Sutherland, Masques in Jacobean Tragedy (New York: AMS Press, 1983).
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© 1988 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Grantley, D. (1988). Masques and Murderers: Dramatic Method and Ideology in Revenge Tragedy and the Court Masque. In: Bloom, C. (eds) Jacobean Poetry and Prose. Insights. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19590-9_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19590-9_11
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