Essays in the History of the Masque: Essence and Echoes
Date of Graduation
Summer 1995
Degree
Master of Arts in English
Department
English
Committee Chair
James Baumlin
Abstract
Literary genres are dynamic; they do not remain permanently fixed, but reflect the mutability of society and literary tradition. In this respect, genre development can be viewed as a series of evolutionary stages which culminate, not in a single or simple form but in "modes" which are then mixed and reshaped within subsequent works of literature. The essays included in this thesis explore the resiliency and the creative range of one particular genre, the English masque, in its development during the seventeenth century as a viable literary and political form (what I have called "essence") into its present appearance as mode--that is, as a more fragmentary collection of elements (what I have called "echoes") recurring within the framework of other genres. Contents: An account of the life and death of a political art form : the Jonsonian masque -- The masque as metaphor : symbols and structure in Much Ado About Nothing -- Art and arms : The poetry and politics of Alfred -- Echoes of the masque in the The Magus.
Subject Categories
English Language and Literature
Copyright
© Jane Ellen Robison
Recommended Citation
Robison, Jane Ellen, "Essays in the History of the Masque: Essence and Echoes" (1995). MSU Graduate Theses. 231.
https://bearworks.missouristate.edu/theses/231
Dissertation/Thesis
