“What Masque? What Music?” Ben Jonson & the Art of Court Spectacle

"Say, what abridgement have you for this evening?

What masque? what music? How shall we beguile

The lazy time, if not with some delight?"

— A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V, Scene 1

There are over a dozen mentions of masques, masquers, and masquing in Shakespeare's plays, and when it came to masques in England for the 16-17th century, no one did them better than Ben Jonson, who was known for staging truly spectacular feats of gradeur at the court of James I.

Our guest is Martin Butler, Professor of Renaissance Drama at the University of Leeds, Fellow of the British Academy, and General Editor of the Cambridge Works of Ben Jonson. He has written extensively on early modern drama and Jonson’s masques in particular, including how these productions functioned as political texts, cultural events, and artistic achievements.

Martin joins us today to help us explore what a masque was exactly, how masques are different from a play, and why it was that Jonson's masques were so special.

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