nseparable from Jonson's approach to the masque that he incorporates them into the masque proper.
The masque form was not promising for a writer who aspired to literary greatness. The texts of Jonson's masques are slight -- no longer than the longest scenes in most Renaissance dramas. Music, dancing and spectacle took up much of the time allotted to the performance, and many in the audience rated the spectacle much higher in importance than the text. Despite their brevity, the texts frequently carried an enormous weight of immediate meanings and current references -- often addressing specific problems the monarchs were facing at the time. Short texts, topicality, and the fact that they were intended for one or, at most, three performances by and for a small aristocratic audience meant masques were regarded as an ephemeral art. There was no broader audience for whom the masques could be staged. They centered almost invariably on the king's presence, and the ultimate point of the performance was the merging of masquers and court in a final dance. Yet Jonson welcomed the chance to become the court's principal masque writer. He firmly believed the masque "both could and should be a significant form of art" (Dutton 95).
The courts of Henry VIII and Elizabeth had been entertained by numerous masquerades and pageants. The masque was the result of the Jacobean court's combination of these two earlier kinds of entertainment. Masquerades had involved the participation of the monarch and the court. Pageants, however, had been presented to the ruler "by University, city, acting company or grateful courtier" (Lindley 3). Pageants were offerings and, as such, could feature praise of the royal recipient while including criticisms of their policies as well. Once the rulers and courtiers began to commission masques and to appear in them as masquers, the combination "of celebration and offering inevitably increase[d] the risk of ...