Pastoral and Masque at Ludlow

Abstract

Our two major categories for defining Milton's Ludlow Maske — as masque and as pastoral — do not coexist very comfortably. The generic `split' between them only appears to be solved by subordinating one kind to the other (Rosemond Tuve, for example, even says, `given the genre, we expect pastoral elements' [133]). As a description, `pastoral masque' harbours paradox if not actual contradiction. The theory behind both the poetic and moral absolutes of the masque is Neoplatonism, with its sharp dichotomy between body and soul and its clear rejection of this world for another. Pastoral, on the other hand, builds its meanings in this world, most notably on the relationships among the creatures (usually men, shepherds) who live here. The masque's emphasis on `things subjected to understanding ... [above] those which are objected to sense' predisposes use of a personification allegory based on emblematic or other iconographical material that facilitates a rather simple didacticism. Pastoral, by reinforcing a second or counter-impulse of the masque, the drive to social integration that represents its formal closure, becomes in effect a way of complicating and even interrogating the stark outlines of the masque's aesthetic project.