Court Masques: Shakespeare Fanfiction
Court masques were performances put on for the court or commissioned private plays. Sometimes the masquers would dance with the audience, and at court members of the Royal Family would even act themselves. Varying in length and audience participation, the court masque was a popular form of entertainment in Shakespeare’s time. His contemporary, Ben Jonson, played a key role in furthering the genre. He wrote and put on many masques, often in collaboration with the designer and architect Inigo Jones.
This case provides contextual information about court masques and shows how Shakespeare’s legacy continued into the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, as inspiration for masques and other works for performance. Authors drew upon Shakespeare’s complex style and his vivid characters. Many of the works, from one act masques to short prequels about the lives of Shakespeare’s heroines, to burlesques, take on the feel of fanfiction, not altering Shakespeare’s canon, but moving around it and branching off from the Bard’s work.
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Carey, George Saville. Shakespeare’s Jubilee: A Masque. London, 1769.
Carey's Shakespeare's Jubilee:A Masque features characters from various Shakespearean plays including Macbeth, The Tempest, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The Bard himself puts in an apperance. Gods like Apollo and the Muses are also present. Reading like an ode to Shakespeare’s genius, the purpose of this masque was to set up a festive feast.
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Colman, George. The Fairy Prince: A Masque. London, 1771.
Colman openly acknowledged that much of the plot of The Fairy Prince is borrowed from Ben Jonson, with additional sections taken from Shakespeare, Gilbert West, and John Dryden. As in Shakespeare’s Jubilee, Oberon from A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a character in this three-act masque, which includes a dance the audience most likely participated in and ends with a show of praise for the King. This masque was performed at the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden.
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Kenrick, W. Falstaff’s Wedding: A comedy being a sequel to the second part of the play of King Henry the Fourth. Written in imitation of Shakespeare. [London], 1760.
In Falstaff's Wedding Kenrick picks up where Shakespeare left off with Falstaff, arguably one of his most beloved characters. The preface, written by a commentator, doubts the author’s work will live up to the Bard based on the “remarkable ill success of preceding imitators of Shakespeare.”
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Halliday, Andrew. Romeo and Juliet Travestie; or, The Cup of Cold Poison. A Burlesque in One Act. London, 1855.
Romeo and Juliet Travestie, or, The Cup of Cold Poison: A Burlesque in One Act, offers a humorous take on Shakespeare’s tragedy, condensing the source-text in the process. This version includes several songs, a ballet, and masquers to join in the revelry. Everyone who dies in the original play comes back to life at the end and they all sing together. As in Shakespeare’s Jubilee, the Bard himself makes an appearance.
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Whistler, Laurence. The Masque of Christmas: Dramatic Joys of the Festival Old. London, 1947.
Ben Jonson presented Christmas: His Masque at court in 1616. The masque designs illustrated here from a 1947 edition, The Masque of Christmas, are by Inigo Jones. Jonson and Jones often worked together, redefining the genre of the court masque, elevating it to a more nuanced literary art. This masque presents Christmas and Cupid personified in celebration of the holiday. In The Masque of Christmas: Dramatic Joys of the Festival Old, Laurence Whistler presents the script for Jonson's masque and images from the 1616 publicaton of Jonson’s dedication to Inigo Jones with the title page, Jones’ drawings of characters and scenery for the masque, and costume designs for a pantomime.
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Cunningham, Peter. Inigo Jones: A Life of the Architect. London, 1848.
Inigo Jones was one of the earliest English architects, as well as a costume and set designer of court masques, and was considered one of the best of his craft. Shown are character sketches of an Airy Spirit, Scogan, Skelton, and Brother of the Rosy Cross, characters in The Fortunate Isles and Their Union masque, performed at court in 1626. This illustration from Inigo Jones: A Life of the Architect by Peter Cunningham provides an idea of how masques would have looked.