SOURCE: "Masque and Anti-masque in 'The Tempest'," in Essays and Studies, Vol. 28, 1975, pp. 1-14.

In the following essay, Wickham examines the cultural and political background to the use of the masque and anti-masque genres in The Tempest.

Many critics, sensing instinctively that some connection exists between Jacobean Court Masques and Shakespeare's later plays, have drawn attention to it; but few of them have chosen to pursue this intuitive recognition to the point of regarding that connection as likely to reside in anything more substantial than Court spectacle grounded in painting, carpentry, machines, and the exquisite costume designs of Inigo Jones. They have therefore been content, in general, to confine comment to the spectacular quality of the later plays—notably the tragi-comedies—and to leave it at that.

In recent years, however, several critics (Muriel Brad-brook, Inga-Stina Ewbank, Emrys Jones, Roy Strong and Stephen Orgel among them) have taken...