Duchess of Malfi Critics

‘‘the pilgrims validate our own response to the play’’

‘‘it serves to bring us emotionally close to the Duchess’’

Angnerston about the dumb show

‘‘repeating historic transgression of Eve’’

Cauaghan

Duchess of Malfi offers a ‘‘meaningless universe, a context for humanity irretrievably prone to corruption and error’’

Ralph Berry

‘‘the Duchess is both culpable and innocent’’

Smith

‘‘witnessing the Duchess and Antonio fall in love is pure delight’’

Lindsay

‘‘an apprehension of pain in a relation to a sense of what it is to be human’’

Lindsay

‘‘stoical resistance to change’’ remaining the duchess of malfi still

lord

‘‘Webster places in the centre of his tragedy a deeply private, reckless and ambiguous character’’

Emma Smith

deluded herself with a ‘‘sense of false empowerment’’ from her title

Johnston-Jones

Bosola’s melancholy is emblematic of the predicament that entraps all the play’s characters, the ‘‘impossibility of living a good life in a morally rotten society’’

Johnston-Jones

‘‘everybody is vile and deceitful to everybody else’’

Cowie

‘‘traditionally masculine, often marital concepts of heroism to his heroine’’

johnson

‘‘marriage was considered a matter of a larger community not only the couple themselves’’

brabcova

‘‘revenge of a husband for his wife’s adultery’’

brabcova suggests ferdinand’s extreme revenge is that of a jealous husband rather than a brother

the duchess’ death ‘‘may excite our pity but does not thrill us with awe’’

luecke

‘‘a catalyst for social transformation’’

lucky on the duchess

‘‘'the Duchess does show herself a poor judge of character’’

Brown

“The anonymity of the Cardinal confers a shadowy remoteness upon him … emerging as the most powerful but least knowable (least easy to understand) of the major figures”

Forker

‘‘he looks towards man for guidance and in seeing none gives up hope in humanity’’

‘‘he is low and cannot fall any lower’’

Soderholm about Bosola

‘‘the most compelling character is decidedly not the Duchess…it’s Bosola, a henchman with conscience’’

Genzlinger 2003 production that highlighted Bosola’s impurity

ferdinand’s references to the Duchess’s body parts ‘‘allow him to exert control over his sister’s body by symbolically dismembering’’

vs

ferdinand’s obsession with the Duchess’s body is ‘‘a disgust with sexuality more broadly’’ not drive by incestuous desire

Jankowksi vs Woolbridge

the duchess resists ferdinand’s psychological torture ‘‘by embracing a sense of physical and mental integrity’’

Morrison - I disagree and think the Duchess adopts mental ignorance, often making naive bolds claims or questions as a purposeful defense. Later on in the play however, this is seen to break down as she realises this ignorant act has not served her well - ‘‘tedious theatre’’. She now embraces her physical and mental integrity, which is seen in the next scene as she endures the madmen