Intertexts

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The Self-Reflexive Drama of the 17^th and 18^th Centuries

Antitheatrical Theatricalism" on the Eighteenth-Century English Stage
This article deals with the theatrical aspects of plays and what this had to say about the society as a whole. The author contends that playwrights who chose to emphasize this self-reflexivity were blurring the line between drama and reality.

Introduction: theater and theatricality
This is an introduction to a larger collection of essays and plays, but it makes some interesting conclusions about why playwrights employed these self-reflexive devices. He also details some of the critiques that the artists were subject to, as well as their responses to them.

An Examination of Love Relationships in the Restoration Performance

A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of English Stage

Female Spectatorship, Jeremy Collier and the Anti-Theatrical Debate

The Concept of Producible Interpretation

Stage and Sexual Tactics: Restoration Drama in Performance
J. L. Stylan, in this essay, provides essential information about the gender organization and sexual ambiance on the Restoration Stage. The author describes the dramatic evolution of a love relationship (which will become very important in my paper): “The Chase, Indignation and Hesitation, Protest and Pretense, and finally Tension and Final Gratification,” especially the area of “final gratification.”

The Licensed Chaos of Masquerade and Restoration Theater-Going

The Anthropology of Theater and Spectacle
Beeman studies the theater from a cultural anthropological perspective, identifying masquerade and the role of the audience as ritual elements of the theater.

Cannibalizing and Carnivalizing: Reviving Aphra Behn's The Rover
Carlson examines the dual nature of the carnival experience for the female characters of The Rover. While disguise offers Florinda and Hellena a new of sense liberation, it has the potential to provide a dangerous and frightening experience.

Amusements serious and comical, calculated for the meridian of London
In this 1702 document, Thomas Brown considers various amusements of London, including the theater. He imagines the theater to be an enchanted island, addressing the notion of theatergoing an insular and escapist experience.

The Construction of Identity and Reconstruction Comedies

Charles Le Brun
Charles Le Brun (1619-1690), a French painter and designer during the last half of the 17th century, influenced the conveyance of emotion in Restoration theater. Possessing incredible artistic abilities, he was most famous for his paintings. Le Brun also studied facial expressions and sketched countenances that typified certain emotions. His caricatures were renowned, and thus would have been recognized by an audience of Restoration drama. Actors studied his drawings and employed expressions with which the spectators would identify. Members of Restoration theater applied Le Brun's sketches to form masks out of their own faces. Le Brun enabled human emotion to be depicted as a mask. These universal definitions facilitated recognition by the audience; ergo, Charles Le Brun helped enhance the use of masks in plays.

The Interpretation of Facial Expression
Dallas E. Buzby, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, focuses upon the scientific work of Boring and Titchener. Using sketches by Pideret, these scientists studied facial expressions and focused on subjects’ abilities to identify emotion.

Eighteenth Century Acting Styles
Anne M. Cooke credits the popularity of David Garrick, Mrs. Siddons, and Edmund Kean to their ability to convey emotion. At this point in time, sentimentalism prevailed throughout art, literature, and theater. In response to the popularity of emotion in drama, writers insisted upon a greater exhibition of feeling from their actors. Cooke’s article is relevant to the topic of masks in Restoration drama. Since the expression of feelings was so significant during this period, the use of masks would also have been imperative for the theater.

Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO)
See how how many tim the word 'mask' is referenced in The Country Wife, The Rover, Love's Last Shift , The Relapse, The Way of the World, and The Beaux Stratagem.

The Oxford English Dictionary
Provides the definitions of 'mask' and 'masquerade.'