Love Restored
Love Restored was a Jacobean era masque, written by Ben Jonson; it was performed on Twelfth Night, 6 January 1612, and first published in 1616. The Dictionary of National Biography says of the masque, "This vindication of love from wealth is a defense of the court revels against the strictures of the puritan city."
Compared to Jonson's previous masques for the Stuart Court, Love Restored was unusual in several respects. Love Restored could be called a "budget" masque, in that its total bill was only in the hundreds of pounds rather than the thousands; specifically, it cost only £280.[1] In this it was different from Jonson's earlier masques like The Masque of Blackness and others, though similar to the immediately preceding masque, Love Freed from Ignorance and Folly. Even more unusually, Love Restored was staged without the participation of Inigo Jones, who had designed the costumes, sets, and stage effects of the prior masques. Aristocratic amateurs of the Court danced ten roles, personifications of Honour, Courtesy, Valour, etc.[2] Speaking parts were filled by "the King's Servants," professional actors of the King's Men.
The masque is dominated by a long conversation among Robin Goodfellow and other mythical figures. "Masquerado," the presenter, apologizes for the lack of music and the generally meager values of the presentation. Plutus, the god of wealth, is pretending to be Cupid, and Robin exposes him and offers to lead Masquerado to the real god. Robin also narrates the difficulties he had in gaining entry to the masque – he had to "go through more than forty disguises" in his attempt to get in – a passage that has been taken to indicate the tactics that people actually employed to gain entry to masque performances in the era.[3]
The text of the masque was published in the first folio collection of Jonson's works in 1616, and was reprinted in the second folio of 1640 and in later collections.
References
External links
- Love Restored online.
- v
- t
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- A Tale of a Tub
- The Case is Altered
- The Isle of Dogs
- Every Man in His Humour
- Every Man out of His Humour
- Cynthia's Revels
- Poetaster
- Sejanus His Fall
- Eastward Hoe
- Volpone
- Epicœne, or The Silent Woman
- The Alchemist
- Catiline His Conspiracy
- Bartholomew Fair
- The Devil Is an Ass
- The Staple of News
- The New Inn
- The Magnetic Lady
- Rollo Duke of Normandy
- The Sad Shepherd
- Mortimer His Fall (fragment)
- The Coronation Triumph
- A Private Entertainment of the King and Queen on May-Day
- The Entertainment at Althorp
- The Masque of Blackness
- Hymenaei
- The Entertainment of the Kings of Great Britain and Denmark
- The Masque of Beauty
- The Masque of Queens
- The Hue and Cry After Cupid
- The Entertainment at Britain's Burse
- The Speeches at Prince Henry's Barriers
- Oberon, the Faery Prince
- Love Freed from Ignorance and Folly
- Love Restored
- A Challenge at Tilt, at a Marriage
- The Irish Masque at Court
- Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists
- The Golden Age Restored
- Christmas, His Masque
- The Vision of Delight
- Lovers Made Men
- Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue
- For the Honour of Wales
- News from the New World Discovered in the Moon
- The Entertainment at Blackfriars
- Pan's Anniversary
- The Gypsies Metamorphosed
- The Masque of Augurs
- Time Vindicated to Himself and to His Honours
- Neptune's Triumph for the Return of Albion
- The Masque of Owls at Kenilworth
- The Fortunate Isles and Their Union
- Love's Triumph Through Callipolis
- Chloridia
- The King's Entertainment at Welbeck
- Love's Welcome at Bolsover
- Ben Jonson folios
- English Renaissance theatre
- Sons of Ben (literary group)