The Essex House Masque of 1621

This edition results from the major discovery of the text of a Stuart court masque that had been presumed no longer extant. In the Portland Papers at the University of Nottingham, Raylor discovered the text performed for the king, the court, and the visiting French ambassador in January 1621, on the eve of the Thirty Years War. This volume presents a fully annotated text, a full discussion of its staging, probable authorship, its literary and theatrical contexts, and its political significance. As a text and study of a newly discovered court masque, it is unique. Raylor reconstructs the political and cultural contexts of the masque, clarifying the diplomatic significance of the occasion and delineating the various political pressures, foreign and domestic, that impinged upon it. The new text is examined in detail. The philosophical and political implications of its fable are teased out; its literary, philosophical, and theatrical sources are traced, and attention is drawn to analogues and parallels with other contemporary masque and ballets de cour. Its staging and costuming are considered, and the question of its design and authorship is examined. Through his analysis, Raylor establishes the extraordinary artistry of the text and argues that it was one of the most intriguing, brilliant, and carefully structured of all the Stuart masques. The Essex House Masque will be of great interest to students of Literary Studies, theater, and history, who have, for a number of years now, been increasingly interested in the court masque as a site where political power and the arts intersect.