The history of the English masque offers a very interesting study in what may be called literary morphology.  Under the influence of the stage the early disguisings and spectacular dances developed into a semi-dramatic kind, intermediate between the literary drama and mere scenic displays, and recognized as possessing a definite nature and proper limitations of its own.  To this highly individualized form of art the term masque may often with convenience and propriety be restricted, but all such rigid and exclusive definitions have this disadvantage, that they tend to make lines of division appear clearer and more logically convincing than they in fact usually are, and further that they tempt us to neglect the often numerous and closely allied specimens which cannot be brought to accommodate themselves to the abstract type.  Those writers who deny that Comus is a masque are entirely justified from their point of view; it is a question of classification, and the classification which it is convenient to adopt may vary according to the nature of the investigation in hand.  It must not, therefore, be thought that I place myself in antagonism to critics such as Dr. Brotanek for example, if I give to the term masque its widest possible signification as including not only the regular and highly developed compositions of the Jonsonian type, but also mere pageants on the one hand, and what may be called miniature plays on the other; all dramatic or semi-dramatic pieces, in short, which it is undesirable or inconvenient to treat along with the regular productions.  Approaching the question as we do, not from the point of view of the evolution of a particular literary form, but from that of a persistent ideal and quasi-philosophical tradition, which manifests itself in all manner of forms and fashions, we have a perfect right to adopt whatever classification suits our purpose best, provided always that we have a clear notion what it is we are discussing.  I propose, therefore, to treat in chronological order all those pieces which, owing to their less fully developed dramatic form, were omitted from the previous chapter.  Something no doubt has been sacrificed by thus separating the regular dramas from the slighter and more occasional compositions, for in the earlier times especially these latter serve to fill considerable gaps in the sequence, and must have had a powerful influence in fashioning that pastoral tradition to which the pieces we have already considered belong.

The connexion of the pastoral with the masque began very early, and may well have been more constant than we should be tempted to suppose from the isolated examples that remain.  The union was a natural one, for the pastoral, whether in its Arcadian or chivalric guise, was well suited to supply the framework for graceful poetry and elaborate dances alike, while the rustic and burlesque elements were equally capable of furnishing matter for the antimasque, when the form had reached that stage of structural elaboration.  The allusive and allegorical features which had long been traditional in the pastoral likewise suited the topical and occasional nature of the masque.  The connexion, however, with the stricter forms at least, was never very close, the tendency on the part of the pastoral to confine itself to a mere external formalism being even more noticeable here than in the case of the regular drama.