Abstract
John Milton put A Maske presented at Ludlow Castle in the middle of his authorial identity when he announced that he was an important writer. A Maske has often been linked with Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue. John Fletcher's The Faithful Shepherdess was one of Milton's favourite plays and reading it can feel like a phantasmagoric encounter with Milton's Maske. The points of intersection between Coelum Britannicum and A Maske show the difference between the sceptical courtier and the romantic humanist. A Maske is the crucial nexus of Milton's two great English influences: Spenser's pastoral romance and Shakespeare's richly human drama. The most fascinating feature of the masque is the Lady. The masque's reversion to a conventional deus ex machina (Sabrina, or, if necessary, Heaven) only underscores retrospectively the boldness of Milton's most original creation in A Maske, a real woman acting nobly in the world.
Original language | English (US) |
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Title of host publication | The Oxford Handbook of Milton |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9780191743900 |
ISBN (Print) | 9780199697885 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Sep 18 2012 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- General Arts and Humanities
Keywords
- Coelum Britannicum
- Faithful Shepherdess
- Human drama
- John Milton
- Ludlow Castle
- Pastoral romance
- Pleasure Reconciled
- Shakespeare
- Spenser