A reading of Holberg's harquinades "Ulysses Von Itacia" and "The Invisibles" placed in a context of European grotesque theatre with a specific regard to the texts relation to respectively older and newer French-Italian masque theatre. The analysis suggeststhat the first text is in perfect accordance with the models and the second contains parodic elements in comparison to the inspiration source. These circumstances are seen as expressions of the author's basic ideas about life and theatre.