“Take Here This Prospective”: Specular Reflections of the Female Spectators in Samuel Daniel’s Vision of the Twelve Goddesses (1604)

Abstract

The subject of the female spectators at the beginning of the seventeenth century in England must be envisaged within the particular context of a variety of theatrical situations. The place of the spectators was different according to the venue, from a social as well as from a spatial point of view. This article is devoted to Samuel Daniel’s masque, The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses (1604), the first real masque of the Jacobean period with women from the court participating as silent actors. Masques are generally characterized by a great permeability between the stage and the audience. In The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses, Daniel laid the stress on the question of the gaze and curiosity. He seemed to be directing the female spectators’ gaze by mediating it through an optical instrument (the “prospective”), which allows them to see better, according to Daniel’s interpretation of his masque. This article examines the relation between the female actor and the female spectator. Did Samuel Daniel give a privileged place to female spectators in his masque, on stage and off stage?