A masque was a popular revelry where people dressed up in fancy costumes and played the roles of various famous figures. Although sometimes just an excuse to get dressed up and party, “the theme of the masque could be an elaborate construction, requiring the audience to interpret multiple layers of symbolism” (Olsen 468). Shakespeare could certainly be accused of this as well. In his plays, he uses the ideas of disguise and deception to compare the changing roles of his characters and, in a way, providing a foil by which each character can compare him- or herself.

One of the most intriguing examples of this is the character of Rosalind/Ganymede in As You Like It. In the beginning of the drama, Rosalind is portrayed as a typical swooning damsel, fearing the unknown of the forest of Arden. When her best buddy Celia takes the reigns and decides what must be done, Rosalind replies, “Alas, what danger will it be to us,/Maids as we are, to travel forth so far!/Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold” (AYL 1.3.100-102).

It‘s interesting the role-reversal that takes place when Rosalind gets a change of clothes: “It is only when she gets the idea of disguising herself as a man that Rosalind becomes the stronger and more active of the two” (Hyland 131). Rosalind finds a hidden strength in being a man. It gives her confidence and, when dealing with Orlando, enough distance to bravely confront her fear of men’s natures, summed up in the phrase “men are/April when they woo, December when they wed” (AYL 4.1.124-25).

Wolfgang Iser, a noted German theorist and literary critic, states that “disguise endowed that which was hidden with a higher status of reality than that represented by the disguise” (140). In other words, the disguises used by Shakespeare revealed a reality that was hidden before. Quite the oxymoron. It would be incorrect to say that Rosalind’s disguise is the source of her boldness. It is, however, the means by which it is revealed, both to the audience, and to her.

In King Lear, there are several people who take on the mantel of a disguise. Kent, in an interesting twist, has to be dishonest and disobedient in order to best serve his king. Although these attributes would seem unwelcome on face value alone, when looking at the context in which they are used, Kent’s dishonesty and disobedience define the epitome of loyalty and service. “My good intent/May carry through itself to that full issue/For which I razed my likeness,” says a newly-disguised Kent (Lr 1.4.2-4).

Edgar is another whose role is usurped and, like a hermit crab, has to find a new “shell”. For safety’s sake, he takes the form of “Poor Tom”, a madman and beggar. In saying, “Edgar I nothing am”, Edgar realizes the loss of his title and, on a personal level, his identity as well (Lr 2.3.21). He renounces his former life and takes on the guise of Poor Tom, for “that’s something yet” (Lr 2.3.21).

Ironically, it’s in Edgar’s disguise as a madman that he finds the truths that were hidden to him before. He sees the true madness of Lear and the fall of his father. Interestingly enough, it is only as Poor Tom that Edgar can best serve and protect Gloucester. “I cannot daub it farther,” Edgar says on hearing his disabled father calling out to him, “And yet I must” (Lr 4.1.53-55). Only in the role of madman can he be the loyal son to his father. As Emily C. Bartels, a Renaissance specialist within the Department of English at Rutgers University, puts it, “it is the platea figures--the bastards, madmen, and fools--who seem to have the answer, to know, to do, and so to be” (226).

But some disguises are not always apparent, and these I refer to as the deceptions. Edmund wears the “disguise” of a loyal son and concerned brother. It’s this deception that allows Edmund to outgrow the strictures of his socially-appointed role. “He invents his own terms of being, outside the ‘plagues of custom’ that automatically brand bastards and brand them as base” (Bartels 226).

It is interesting to note, however, that Edmund’s newfound title limits him more than when he wore the label of bastard. When he was “just” a bastard, he had strength and confidence. “I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing,” he says when denouncing the reliance others had on fate (Lr 1.2.120-22). When titled, however, he loses his initiative and becomes a more reactive character. Cornwall orders him around, and when Edmund tries to take the initiative towards the end of the play, Albany tells him “Sir, by your patience,/I hold you but a subject of this war,/Not as a brother” (Lr 5.3.60-62). By the end of the play, neither his attempt to save Cordelia and Lear nor his death elicit much reaction from the other characters. “To be Edmund, Earl of Gloucester, inside the illusion, is nothing; to be the bastard, outside it, that’s something yet” (Bartels 228).

Prince Hal in 1 Henry IV is another character that is viewed through a mirror of deception. He plays many roles in the beginning of the play. The depth of his deceptions are astounding in his role of a highway robber; he wears several layers of “masks”--friend, robber, and prankster to name a few. The only mask he is not wearing is the one of prince; it is for this mask that he waits for an appropriately dramatic moment to present. “By so much shall I falsify men’s hopes,” says Prince Harry in one of the beginning scenes of the play, “And like bright metal on a sullen ground,/My reformation, glittering o’er my fault,/Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes…” (1H4 1.2.189-92).

Like a child outgrowing his toys, Prince Hal readily discards his previous roles for the one he has anticipated and prepared for from the beginning. The preplanned nature of this “shedding” and the willingness with which Hal conducts it shows his character to be manipulative and somewhat cold (to the modern audience). This is in direct contrast to the reaction of other characters in the play, who have not witnessed the calculations of the prince. King Henry, for instance, finally has a father-son bonding moment with Hal on the battlefield--”Thou hast redeemed thy lost opinion” he states, thereby confirming the success of the prince’s strategy (1H4 5.4.47).

Deception, however, is not always projected outward, as Shakespeare shows us in Richard II. The title character, Richard, seems like a king pretending to be a king. Professor Anthony B. Dawson, of the University of British Columbia, sums up the what is at the heart of the drama: “the play investigates a conflict between the public and private roles of the king” (Dawson 429). Although Dawson feels this explanation is a little simplistic, it provides a good focus for the dilemma of Richard’s battle: who he is vs. who he should be.

When Richard is forced to confront his lack of title, he is confused by his inability to see himself beyond it. When Bolingbroke asks Richard, “Are you contented to resign the crown?”, Richard replies, “Ay, no; no, ay; for I must nothing be” (R2 4.1.190-91). His definition of “self” was solely based upon the role he played, and left to his own devices, he is a pitiable figure, mewling in the dark like a frightened kitten.

It is in these solitary moments, however, that the true character of the king is refined and eventually revealed, and the kitten becomes a lion. His final words to his killers are, “Exton, they fierce hand/Hath with the King’s blood stained the King’s own land./Mount, mount, my soul; thy seat is up on high” (R2 5.5.109-11). Although Richard’s death is a tragedy, it is also his redemption.

Shakespeare used disguises and deception to reveal the hidden natures and attributes of his characters, as well as compare the roles of society with the roles of the individual. With his words, he invites us to the masque.

Works Cited

Bartels, Emily C. “Breaking the Illusion of Being: Shakespeare and the Performance of Self.” Theatre Journal. Vol. 46, No. 2 (1994): 171-85. Rpt. in Shakespearean Criticism: Yearbook 1994. Vol. 28. Ed. Michael Magoulias. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1996. 223-31.

Dawson, Anthony B. “Richard II.” Watching Shakespeare, a Playgoers’ Guide. (1988): 77-87. Rpt. in Shakespearean Criticism. Vol. 24. Ed. Joseph C. Tardiff. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1994. 428-33.

Greenblatt, Stephen, ed. The Norton Shakespeare. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1997.

Hyland, Peter. “Shakespeare’s Heroines: Disguise in the Romantic Comedies.” Ariel: A Review of International English Literature Vol. 9, 2 (1978): 23-39. Rpt. in Shakespearean Criticism. Vol. 34. Eds. Dana Ramel Barnes and Marie Lazzari. Detroit: Gale Research, 1997. 130-31.

Iser, Wolfgang. “The Dramatization of Double Meaning in Shakespeare’s As You Like It.” Theatre Journal Vol. 35, No. 3 (1983): 307-32. Rpt. in Shakespearean Criticism. Vol. 34. Eds. Dana Ramel Barnes and Marie Lazzari. Detroit: Gale Research, 1997. 131-47.

Olsen, Kirstin. All Things Shakespeare: An Encyclopedia of Shakespeare’s World. Vol. 2. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2002.

Shakespeare, William. As You Like It. Rpt. Greenblatt 1600-56. ---. The History of Henry IV. Rpt. Greenblatt 1157-1222. ---. King Lear. Rpt. Greenblatt 2479-2553. ---. The Tragedy of King Richard the Second. Rpt. Greenblatt 952-1012.