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

"Death proves them all but toyes": Nashe's unidealising show / Elizabeth Cook -- "In those figures which they seeme": Samuel Daniel's Tethys' festival / John Pitcher -- Music, masque and meaning in The tempest / David Lindley -- Sounding to present occasions: Jonson's masques of 1620-5 / Sara Pearl -- To that secure fix'd state': the function of the Caroline masque form / Jennifer Chibnall -- The reformation of the masque / David Norbrook -- The present aid of this occasion': the setting of Comus / John Creaser -- Location and meaning in masque, morality, and royal entertainment / Helen Cooper -- The French element in Inigo Jones's masque designs* / John Peacock -- Dryden's Albion and Albanius: the apotheosis of Charles II / Paul Hammond.

Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones enjoyed one of the most successful theatrical collaborations of Renaissance England with their spectacular court masques. Wilson argues that the masque is in a perpetual state of liminality, existing in the margin between performance and an observing audience.

Examines the masques and court festivals staged between 1603 and 1640, demonstrating how they reflected and influenced the Stuart kingship.

This study examines representations of early modern female consorts and regnants via extra-literary emblematics such as paintings, jewelry, miniature portraits, carvings, placards, masques, funerary monuments, and imprese.

In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death", Prince Prospero isolates himself and his wealthy guests to avoid a deadly plague. Despite his efforts to escape death, it invades his masked ball, proving that no one can escape fate.