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Examples

  • In Prometheus Unbound, the most fervent realization of this type of internalized staging occurs in the final act, a jubilatory anti-masque that illustrates the literal de-masking of an ancien régime and the introduction of a new world order.

    'An assiduous frequenter of the Italian opera': Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound and the opera buffa 2005

  • The whole exhibition was to be considered as a sort of anti-masque, or burlesque of the more stately pageants in which the nobility and gentry bore part in the show, and, to the best of their knowledge, imitated with accuracy the personages whom they represented.

    Kenilworth 2004

  • The dance in the play is borrowed from an anti-masque in Beaumont's

    The Facts About Shakespeare William Allan Nielson

  • It is a voluptuous farce, a masque and anti-masque of wantonness and stratagem, of wine-cups and jewels and fine raiment, of gaudy nights and amorous days, of careless husbands and adventurous wives, of innocent fathers and rebel daughters and lovers happy or befooled.

    Views and Reviews Essays in appreciation William Ernest Henley 1876

  • Another anti-masque satirized the wild projects of crazy speculators and inventors; and as it moved along the spectators laughed aloud at the "fish-call, or looking-glass for fishes in the sea, very useful for fishermen to call all kinds of fish to their nets;" the newly-invented wind-mate for raising a breeze over becalmed seas, the "movable hydraulic" which should give sleep to patients suffering under fever.

    A Book About Lawyers John Cordy Jeaffreson 1866

  • This flood of flashing chivalry was succeeded by an anti-masque of beggars and cripples, mounted on the lamest and most unsightly of rat-tailed srews and spavined ponies, and wearing dresses that threw derision on legal vestments and decorations.

    A Book About Lawyers John Cordy Jeaffreson 1866

  • The peculiarity of Jonson's _Masques_ most deserving of remark seems to me to be the anti-masque, as they are called, which the poet himself sometimes attaches to his own invention, and generally allows to precede the serious act.

    Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature August Wilhelm Schlegel 1806

  • The whole exhibition was to be considered as a sort of anti-masque, or burlesque of the more stately pageants in which the nobility and gentry bore part in the show, and, to the best of their knowledge, imitated with accuracy the personages whom they represented.

    Kenilworth Walter Scott 1801

  • There was an anti-masque of characters who threatened the golden glory of the round table, let no one doubt that one of the signs of a great kingdom was the existence of its enemies, but they were thrown down without much difficulty; in Robert’s fictional England there was no sign of Elizabeth’s constant terror of war.

    The Virgin's Lover Philippa Gregory 1996

  • There was an anti-masque of characters who threatened the golden glory of the round table, let no one doubt that one of the signs of a great kingdom was the existence of its enemies, but they were thrown down without much difficulty; in Robert’s fictional England there was no sign of Elizabeth’s constant terror of war.

    The Virgin's Lover Philippa Gregory 1996

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  • A comic and grotesque piece of clowning that sometimes preceded a masque. A.k.a. antemasque, this farcical prelude was a commonly a burlesque of the masque to follow.

    September 18, 2009