ABSTRACT
One of the most sophisticated of secular rituals practiced within the Elizabethan court, the masque is a pattern of theatrical festivity drawing on both indigenous and continental traditions. Since social theatricality was particularly various during the Elizabethan age, the terms used to describe it are unstable. Court revelry had no canonical form until the reign of James I when Inigo Jones’ staging and Ben Jonson’s scripts brought a standard and a pattern.
