ABSTRACT
The issue of visual spectacle in Jonson’s plays is problematic. ‘Spectacle’ for Jonson himself increasingly came to mean scenic theatre and the mechanics required to accomplish its marvels within the court masque; and, as his relations with Inigo Jones became strained, Jonson’s pronouncements against visual effects and against those ‘spectators’ whose concept of theatre in his view extended no further than delighting the eye and the fancy became ever stronger. He began marking his preference for auditors as the ideal receivers of his drama. Certainly in his masques the spoken and sung texts have a profundity of import often accompanied by a delicacy of wit and elegant compliment that require attentive listening: the verbal artistry is sophisticated, pointed and challenging. Delight is present, but it is the delight of an urbane mind relishing the exercise of its learning, insight and scruple. Jonson clearly saw his texts and libretti as giving his audiences informed access to the visual splendours: his words taught how properly to read the visual dimension of the masques and so pass beyond a mere engagement with the eyes to an understanding of the symbolic intentions of the spectacle. But this was expensive court theatre; the popular theatres were a decidedly different world; and it would be wrong to apply Jonson’s strictures about spectacle which derived from his work at court to his plays for more public spaces and deduce from his increasingly angry observations about masques a lack of concern for the visual potential of drama. The visual dimension of plays staged at the Globe, Blackfriars, or the Hope would be of an order different from what is implied by ‘spectacle’, being more preoccupied with a creative use of stagespace; and here, I would argue, Jonson demonstrates a remarkable expertise and inventiveness.
