LOCATING THE EUROPEAN CARNIVAL IN THE CULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITAIN

This essay aims initially to trace back the European carnival celebrations which emerged out only after the mid-twentieth century within the British culture. A cultural phenomenon that has its roots in the festivals of the pre-Christian times, carnival was a series of rituals associated with the arrival of spring at the time. In time it was adopted and appropriated by Christianity in the western world and it thus spread all around Europe as a religious rite. Carnivals opened up a space for unruliness and excess before the period of fasting and abstinence started for Lent. As opposed to the rest of Europe, in Britain carnival could not be established as a tradition, the reason of which remains ambiguous to this day. In this essay, the potential reasons behind this cultural exclusion are laid out and examined with reference to the views and discussions of other scholars. The particular focus of this essay is the possible relations between carnival and the act of masking as masking constitutes one of the most defining aspects of the carnival. As stripping off one's identity by means of performance is essential to both masks and the carnival, it could be argued that these two omissions in the British culture are somehow related. Besides, it is a fact that there has never been an authentic mask tradition in the history of British theatre. This essay tackles the question: can the lack of carnivals in the cultural history of Britain be connected with the lack of an authentic mask tradition there? In answering this question, examples of masking traditions in theatre from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance are discussed particularly with regard to the reception of the audiences and authorities. As masking practices were banned in the social arenas by authorities, they seem to have disappeared in the culture. The final part of the essay provides information about the state of carnivals in contemporary Britain. The curious incident of carnivals eventually finding a place in the British culture of the twentieth century is explained through developments regarding immigration, racism and multiculturalism.