The Masque of Blackness was an early Jacobean era masque. The masque was written by Ben Jonson at the request of Anne of Denmark, the queen consort of King James I, who wished the masquers to be disguised as Africans. Anne was one of the performers in the masque along with her court ladies, and appeared in blackface makeup. The plot of the masque follows the ladies arriving at the English Court to be "cleansed" of their blackness by King James. The Masque of Beauty was written as a sequel to The Masque of Blackness.
Author
Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems. A man of vast reading and a seemingly insatiable appetite for controversy, Jonson had an unparalleled breadth of influence on Jacobean and Caroline playwrights and poets. A house in Dulwich College is named after him. See more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben\_Jonson
