John Crowne, the Restoration Court, and the ‘Understanding’ of Calisto

Abstract

This article investigates the messages conveyed by John Crowne in his Restoration court masque, Calisto (1675). While this large-scale production featured splendid dancing and expensive costumes, Crowne complained that its ‘Understanding’ was ‘slenderly treated’, This article considers what this ‘Understanding’ should have been. It suggests that Crowne’s intention in Calisto was to demonstrate what happened to conventional Christian morality and to female victims when the amorous ideas and justifications espoused by the Restoration court wits, and indulged by Charles II, were followed. It argues that Calista was a piece of counsel to the court — one that looked remarkably like that on Crowne’s stage — about the dangers of the Carolean court’s most conspicuous form of sexuality. This form employed deception, disguise and the innate redefinition of conventional values related to personal behaviour and morality (virtue, reason and honour) in order to seduce a series of sexual partners, and to justify that seduction with wit and intelligence.