Volume 1 of a set of 4.

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 masques traces the evolution of the genre from Jonson's early masques for King James I to Davenant's 1640 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 topical political issues. In this, the most substantial available selection, readers are offered the annotation necessary to gain an understanding of the complexities of the individual texts. Under the General Editorship of Michael Cordner of the University ofYork, the texts 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 of Renaissance drama and court culture.

This collection of commissioned essays by established scholars, responds to critical debate on political theatre of the turbulent early years of the seventeenth century. Theatre is widely interpreted. The authors discuss censorship, the social implications of pageantry, Reformation ideals, popular theatre and the politics of the masque throughout the period. An early chapter discusses political theatre in the light of work by revisionist and post-revisionist historians. The drama of Jonson, Dekker, Middleton, Massinger, Chapman, Heywood and Rowley is given detailed attention, while Shakespeare's plays are considered in the introductory chapter.

A 1998 collection which takes an alternative look at the courtly masque in early seventeenth-century England.