They showed things people would rarely see, and they showed it to the wide audience. They caught the attention of common people. When the zoetrope and nickelodeon technology first appeared, the earliest films were spectacles. The role of the architect was that of designer of the staging, which would be elaborate and often culminate in a fireworks show. William Davenant, who would become one of the major impresarios of the English Restoration, also wrote pre-Revolutionary masques with Inigo Jones. ![]() ![]() Ben Jonson, for example, wrote masques with the architect Inigo Jones. Masques were multimedia, for they almost always involved costuming and music as a method of conveying the story or narrative. For example, Edmund Spenser ( Fairie Queene I, iv) describes a masque of The Seven Deadly Sins. Unlike The Masque at Ludlow, most masques were recreations of well-known mythological or religious scenes. This is partially due to the purpose of the masque being family entertainment and spectacle. Reading the text of masques, such as The Masque at Ludlow (most often referred to as Comus), the writing is spare, philosophical, and grandiose, with very few marks of traditional dramatic structure. The character lists for masques would be quite small, in keeping with the ability of a small family of patrons to act, but the costumes and theatrical effects would be lavish. Such masques, as their name implies, relied heavily upon a non-verbal theater. 1340 as "specially prepared or arranged display" it was borrowed from Old French spectacle, itself a reflection of the Latin spectaculum "a show" from spectare "to view, watch" frequentative form of specere "to look at." The word spectacle has also been a term of art in theater dating from the 17th century in English drama.Ĭourt masques and masques of the nobility were most popular in the Jacobean and Caroline era. In general, spectacle refers to an event that is memorable for the appearance it creates. JSTOR ( July 2017) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message). ![]() Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. This article needs additional citations for verification.
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