Interpreting The Irish Masque at Court and in Print

Interpreting TheIrishMasque at Court and in Print JEMCS 1.2 (Fall/Winter 2001) LaurenShohet recent years, criticism oftheJacobean court masquehasreconsidered several ideasabout therelationship between masque androyal power that were dominant inearlier analyses. Whereas earlier work often tookthemasqueform toserve theking's interests alone, current research - drawing onhistorians' revisionist arguments about Jacobean politics - explores how masques represent divided interests andfactional jockeying atJames's court.1 Thus,inthe1998anthology Politics oftheStuart Court Masque, LeedsBarroll, TomBishop, Stephen Orgel, andothers analyze Jacobean masquesas documents andtools ofcourtly debate, as wellas royalist celebration. Whatremains unchanged bythis shift in critical practice, however, is theunderlying notion of masqueas a waytouselanguage andperformance tointercede intheReal.Thatis,theexemplary revisionist essaysinPolitics oftheStuart Court Masquesharewith more traditional masque criticism a view ofmasqueas a toolthat patrons and/or producerswield toadvance their interests. Asimilarly instrumental notion undergirds thecomplementary strand ofmasquecriticism thatexplores howthepublication of Jonsonian court masques, inparticular, produces a model ofpoetic authority derived from Jacobean absolutism, a "mutual heightening oftheprestige ofmaker . . . andmonarch," inJosephLoewenstein 's phrase, as the Jonson folios display thepoet's twinrolesas fashioner ofabsolutist myth and interpreter of mysteries for a readerly audience ("Printing" 170).Although authority appearsmoredialectical in arguments thatshowhow printed masquetexts elevate thepoetas wellas thepatron (or even, perhaps, atthelatter's expense), critics tracing paradigms ofauthorship sharewithhistorians ofabsolutist aesthetics a model that takes text toserve authority, as inRichard C.Newton's Shohet 43 remark thatJonson'spublication ofmasque texts"defines them as hiswithan assurancenewinliterary life" (39).2 But ourdiscipline seldomtakesothergenresoflanguageor performance to signify in quiteso straightforward a way,and I wouldsuggest thatourviewofStuart court masquemaybegreatly enriched ifwetreatmasquemoreas wetreatothercomplex representational forms: as moreambiguous, moresupple,and more profoundly interpretable thanthiskindofinstrumental criticism allows.Rather thanJamesand/orHenry, pacifism and/ormilitarism , criticism and/orcompliment, perhapsmasques- likeother linguistic forms - offer an unlimited rangeofmeanings, meanings notnecessarily undertheir producers' control.3 TheIrish MasqueatCourt (scripted byBenJonson,performed 1613,printed 1616)offers an appositedeparture pointfor an investigation informed bytheseconcerns because,as I shallargue, thispiecerevealsmasque doingsomething rather different from whatitsays.TheIrish Masqueassertsa straightforward program oforthodox ideological politics (English colonialdomination ofIreland ),but- despite itselfitperforms thetenuousness ofitsclaims, revealing gaps whereinall mannerofinterpretation can be inscribed .(Anditsfocuson a nationcharacteristically defined in terms ofitslinguistic alterity andcomplex constituency makesan "IrishMasque"a particularly interesting place to evaluatenewhistoricist -inflected claimsabouttheuses ofrepresentation inadvancingpoliticalprograms .4) Congruently, theparticular pressures thatrepresenting dialectputs on conventions ofprinting makethismasque a usefulplace toreconsider ournotionsthat masque scriptsconsistently workto consolidatetheirscriptors* authorialprivilege. I shall showthatprecisely wherewe might expectmasque to offer a particularly convincing exampleofart exacting ideological assent (theorthodox Foucauldian/new-historicist model), theIrish Masque- which setsouttomockmasqued Irishmen and script their submission totheEnglishcourt-actuallyunravels severaldifferent modelsofcourtly power. Andwhen wethink notonlyaboutwhatthemasquesetsouttodo,butalso whataudiencesand readersmayhavetakenittodo,wesee that theIrishMasque raises questionsnotonlyabout Ireland,Irish politics,and Irishnationalidentity, but also about "standard" English, Englishpolitics, and Englishnationalidentity. 1 TheIrishMasque at Court was performed twice(indicating a warmreception) during theChristmas season of1613-14,as one 44 TTie Journal forEarlyModernCulturalStudies ofthe entertainments celebrating theweddingofRobertCan* (Earl ofSomersetand favorite oftheKing)to FrancesHoward. The deviceofthemasque is exceptionally simplebyJacobean standards. "Irish"ambassadors,withtheirfootmen Dennise, Donnell,Dermock, and Patrick, cometocelebratethewedding. The footmen establishtheKing'sidentity ("ForChreesh'ssake, phairish te king?Phichish he, an't be? Show me te shweet faish,quickly. ByGot,o'myconshence, tishishhe!"[BenJonson VII:397-405,1-3]);they bemoantheloss oftheir party's wedding clothesonthetempestuous journey("tevillanousvildIrishsheas haue cashtawayallterfine cloysh, as manyash coshta towsand cowes,andgarranees, Ivarrant tee"[73-75]);they protest atsome lengththe loyaltyofthe Irish people ("Tou hasht verygoot shubshectsin Ireland"[102].) Returning to theAmbassadors' sartorialpredicament, theyare assured byan IrishBard that "standing in[theKing's]eye,/You'llfeeleyourselveschang'dby and by"[177-78];accordingly, they"letfalltheir[Irish] mantles" [183],"discovering" courtly "masquingapparell"(183-84).Hereafter , thestage-Irish idiomis heardnomore.Instead,thebard's secondsongcelebrates thedancers'transformation interms that associate theirchangeofcostumewithnaturalprocessesofrenewal and refinement: "So breakes the sunne earthsrugged chaines,/. . ./ So nakedtreesgetcrispedheads,/Andcullord coates the roughestmeads,/ And all get vigour,youth,and spright,/ Thatarebutlook'donbyhislight" (186-94).Themasque involved no elaboratemachinery orcostumes(InigoJoneswas inItalyat thetime);nosongsorinstrumental piecesdefinitively associatedwiththepiecesurvive. Bysomelights, then, thispiece certainly appears tobe a straightforward absolutistJacobean/ Jonsonianendeavor, wellcontainedbyitsscript, withrelatively few messyperformance effects toworry about,ormanyopportunitiesforliterary ambiguity. Recentscholarship has focusedontheIrish Masque'sengagementoftopicalpoliticalcontroversies . In additiontotheperennialfactors ofIrishadministrative crises,violent suppressionof NativeIrish,and implementation ofplantation inUlster, ambassadorsfrom IrelandwereinLondonat thetimeofthemasque's performance, awaiting James'srulingon a petition thatwould altertheParliamentary balance ofpowerbetweenOld (Catholic) andNew(Protestant) Englishsettlers.5 DavidLindley arguesthat themasque'sshallowand facetious representation oftheseIrish politicalissues is linkedto the task of celebratingFrances Howard'spolitically awkwardremarriage as a...