1.  Read the introduction on pp. 1294-1295 carefully, noting the emphasis on the peculiarities of the masque genre and the ways that it differs from the stage play.  What passages in Jonson's text for The Masque of Blackness reflect most strongly the characteristics of the masque genre as opposed to those of a play?

2.  Take a look at this web page featuring Inigo Jones's drawings of costumes and sets for court masques.  How heavily does the masque genre seem to rely on the art of Inigo Jones (the designer of the elaborate sets and costumes), as compared with that of Jonson (the writer)?  What aspects of The Masque of Blackness strike you as occasions for competition between the two artists?

3.  In Jacobean court masques, the king (James I), is always the principal audience member and point of reference; it is his wealth that makes the masque possible, and it is his power that the performance celebrates.  In The Masque of Blackness, James's royal power is mythologized: he is the sun that shines over the isle of Brittania and whose rays can transform the Ethiopian nymphs, turning their skins from black to white.  Re-read pp. 1209-1211 for a review of James's character as a ruler and an account of the separate households of his wife, Queen Anne, and his son, Prince Henry; note that it was Queen Anne who commissioned The Masque of Blackness and performed in it with her noblewomen.  To what extent does The Masque of Blackness reinforce and glorify James's patriarchal and absolutist notions of himself as monarch?  To what extent and in what ways does it challenge them?

4.  In what ways does The Masque of Blackness reinforce the English notion that fair, light-skinned women embody ideal beauty?  In what ways does it challenge that notion?  Which predominates: the reinforcement, or the challenge?

5.  Given Bacon's opinions as expressed in his essay "Of Masques and Triumphs," what would he have thought of The Masque of Blackness?  Did it (when performed in 1605) conform to his notions of propriety and grace in masques?