Performing Devotion in The Masque of Blacknesse

In this essay, I consider Ben Jonson's Masque of Blacknesse (1605) in the context of early Stuart confessional instability, particularly the connected and increasingly urgent issues of Catholic conversion and Protestant conformity. I begin by considering the unstable devotional identity of the masque's originator and featured player, Anne of Denmark, and that of Jonson himself. Looking past obvious allusions to the African exotic, I then argue that their first collaborative masque, in its focus on chromatic metamorphosis and cosmetic disguise, offers a fittingly oblique commentary on the ambiguous religious performances undertaken by early modern Catholic converts.