| Abstrakt: |
The vocabulary of dance in "A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle" (1634) defines Milton's moral vision by disappointing our generic expectations of a court masque. The climax of many court masques was an allegorical dance in which the masquers sought to instantiate the harmony of the cosmos by dancing like the stars or to rehearse Theseus's successful negotiation of the Cretan labyrinth. In Milton's "Mask," Comus and his beastly courtiers perform the starry dance, and the Lady must negotiate a true labyrinth, not simply commemorate an ancient triumph in dance. This revisionary program does not amount to the utter rejection of dance called for by strident Puritans, for in the final dance of the children, which makes the household and not the court the essential unity of the polity, "A Mask" beautifully affirms the capacity of the body in motion to signify. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
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