What is a Masque?
During an event commemorating the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante in Florence where we declaimed the entire ‘Divine Comedy’ I began to reconnect with the spirit of the Romantics. I took a trip out to Viareggio and found myself in front of Shelley’s statue where an imaginary conversation took place between his bronze bust and myself cast as a passing tourist. The idea a verse-drama or ‘masque’ – a work at the intersection of poetry and theatre – began taking shape.
Shelley, Byron and Keats lived poetically. There was a drama to their short but extraordinary lives and these dedications, these three masques, I hope provide not only a contemporary reflection but a manifestation of the spirit that compelled them, offering a documentation of what lead them to seek exile, inspiration and restitution in Italy.
NEXT: THREE MasquES →
JAN NOBLE 