Court Masques and the “Richly Appareled” Dwarf: Performing Diminutive Bodies in <i>Chloridia</i> and <i>Salmacida Spolia</i>

Abstract Masques such as William Davenant’s Salmacida Spolia and Ben Jonson’s Chloridia feature performances by the court dwarf Jeffrey Hudson. In these masques, the dwarf accessorizes the scene, rendering the space of the antimasque disorderly and diminutive. Moreover, the dwarf body functions as a prop: His small stature plays with viewers’ sense of perspective, allowing other characters to appear larger—or for disorderly realms of the antimasque to appear disjointed and infantile. Ultimately these performances bolster images of the English body politic.