“antics, beasts, sprites, witches, Ethiops”: Early Modern Racecraft in The Masque of Blackness (1605)

In this essay, I call attention to early modern racecraft in order to dwell on what we, teachers of English literature, can and should do with the persistent racism in our rapidly changing world. Despite the renewed definitions and discourses of race, racecraft—an ongoing set of social practices such as rituals, symbolism, and everyday interactions—pervades and informs our attitude towards race. The early modern period is when such racecraft was at work to formulate and elaborate illusions of race and to advance political agendas. Having this historical context in mind, I offer a nuanced reading of Ben Jonson’s The Masque of Blackness (1605) with a special focus on the interstice of racial impersonation and early Stuart statecraft involving both King James and Queen Anna. In so doing, I hope to cultivate discussions of the future of early modern race studies and of ways we can address these issues in the classroom.