Commonplace Blog - The Masque of Blackness and Nationalism Today


The Masque of Blackness - Ben Jonson



"A world divided from the world" 

- Ben Jonson, The Masque of Blackness (B: 1045)


https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/can-we-bridge-our-ideological-divide-in-2025-readers-are-divided/


I chose the line "A world divided from the world" because I find that it directly relates to the political issues that America is experiencing today. While in the text The Masque of Blackness, that particular line is not directly relating to the politics of England, I found that it resonates heavily with the scary divide that America is facing today. While there is a divide among the American people, there is also a divide between America and the rest of the world. Citizens of other countries have expressed concern relating to America's current political climate on social media apps such as TikTok. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lanval and Beauty Standards Over Time

 Marie de France - Lanval "They were about to give their judgment when through the city came riding a girl on horseback: there was none more beautiful in the world. She rode a white palfrey, who carried her handsomely and smoothly: he was well apportioned in the neck and head, no finer beast in the world. The palfrey’s trappings were rich; under heaven there was no count or king who could have afforded them all without selling or mortgaging lands. She was dressed in this fashion: in a white linen shift that revealed both her sides since the lacing was along the side. Her body was elegant, her hips slim, her neck whiter than snow on a branch, her eyes bright, her face white, a beautiful mouth, a well-set nose, dark eyebrows and an elegant forehead, her hair curly and rather blond; golden wire does not shine like her hair in the light. Her cloak, which she had wrapped around her, was dark purple." (546-571) Beauty Standards Over Time: https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/07/health/body-...
Read more

American Moor versus Richard III: Playing Roles Opposite of Their "Type"

Image
  American Moor  - Kieth Hamilton Cobb "'Don't do Titania. Pick something else.'  So I said, 'Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,  Towards Phoebus' lodging: such a wagoner As Phaethon would whip you to the west, And bring in cloudy night immediately.  Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night, That runaway's eyes may wink and Romeo Leap to these arms, untack'd of and unseen-' 'Pick something you might realistically play! Something befitting your age, and experience!' 'O, what a role and pleasant slave am I! It is not monstrous that this player here, But in fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so to his own conceit-' 'Hamlet is hardly your experience...'" Richard III  performed at the Globe: I just to use this passage in comparison with the 2024 Globe's production of Richard III because they both touch on/contain characters either played by the opposite sex, or characters feeling as though the...
Read more

The Wife of Bath's Prologue versus The Cell Block Tango: Lethal Women in Wedlock?

  The Wife of Bath's Prologue  - Geoffrey Chaucer      "But now to purpose why I tolde thee That I was beaten for a book, pardee: Uponn a night Jankin, that was oure sire, Read on his book, as he sat by the fire, Of Eva first, that for her wickedness Was all mankinde brought to wrecchedness, For which that Jesus Christ himself was slain That bought us with his herte blood again- Lo, here express of women may ye find That women was the loss of all mankind.     Tho read he me how Sampson lost his heres: Sleeping his lemman cut it with her sheres, Thurgh which treason lost he both his eyen,     Tho read he me, if that I shall not lien, Of Ercules and of his Dianire, That caused him to set himself afire.     Nothing forgot he that sorwe and wo That Socrates hadde with his wives two, How Xantippa caste piss upon his head: This sely man sat still as he were dead; He wiped his head, no more dorste he sayn But 'Er that thonder stinte, comth...
Read more