Courtly psychosis, the rhetoric of preferment in the court masque

grantor: University of TorontoThe purpose of this thesis is to supply modern readers and spectators with an understanding of the court masque. My aim is not to "arrive at a definition and close a book," but "to arrive at an experience" of the court masque (Ciardi 316). Past definitions of the court masque need to be re-examined: existing definitions are only partially helpful in making spectators of the masque "understanders" in the Jonsonian sense of the word. New corroborative evidence, and research such as W. R. Streitberger's into the accounts of court records, demonstrate that existing notions of the masque are incomplete. The relationship between the genre and festival celebrations, and certain entrenched historical views that speak to the provenance and substance of the court masque, in particular need revisiting. In addition, new insights into the internal dynamics of the masque form can be found in the work of Kenneth Burke. This thesis will undertake an approach to the court masque based on the twin pillars of Streitberger's research on the revels and Burkean rhetorical theory. The first two chapters provide an introduction to the main clusters of masque criticism, some examples of earlier masques, and a brief description of Burke's courtship paradigm. The final three chapters consider the application of Burke's courtship theory to the court masques of three prominent authors, Philip Sidney, William Shakespeare, and Ben Jonson.Ph.D