The Duchess of Malfi quotes, context and AO5

Bosola as a malcontent and Machiavellian character/social commentary

Antonio (Bosola): "This foul melancholy will poison all his goodness" (1,1)

"Man stands amazed to see his deformity... but in our own flesh, though we bear diseases... a rotten and dead body, we delight to hide it in rich tissue." (2,1)

"I look no higher than I can reach... when a man's mind rides faster than his horse can gallop, they quickly both tire." (2,1)

“Can this ambitious age… prefer a man merely for worth, without these shadows of wealth and painted honours” (3,2)

Meta theatrical quotations

Ferdinand (4,2): "That a good actor many times is cursed for playing a villian's part"

Duchess: "I account this world a tedious theatre, for I do play a part in't 'gainst my will" (4,1)

The Duchess as a tragic heroine

"The misery of us that are born great! We are forced to woo because no one dare woo us" (1,2)

"This is flesh and blood, sir: Tis' not a figure cut in alabaster"

Duchess to Cariola: "I winked and chose a husband"

“I’ll starve myself to death” (4,1)

“I am Duchess of Malfi still: (4,2)- self- knowledge, tragic hero status

AO5- George Norton (Revenge tragedy)

Great princes sustain themselves in power through the flattery of courtiers - religious figures can be equally degenerate with hypocritical and devious churchmen- the Cardinal.

Women in revenge tragedies are constructed as objects of male disgust revealing male sexual anxieties and the fissures in patriarchal assumptions.

Malcontents (Norton) AO3

They are outsiders, alienated and ambivalent figures whose motivation is difficult to pin down. They are often educated- Bosola is a "fantastic scholar". In Early Modern England, scholars were viewed with anxiety, so the education of malcontent increased both their potential for subversion and the disquiet with which they are regarded. Antonio remarks that "black malcontents" are "like moths in a cloth", destroying all around them. Socially unfixed, malcontents are often 'modern men', sceptical of religious and political orthodoxies and a threat to the established order.

Lucy Webster- Bosola, villain, victim or symbol of his age?

Bosola begins the play as an outsider, both literally and metaphorically. He appears to have no place in society, this lack of position in Jacobean drama meant social exclusion, lack of position- that characterises the malcontent. The feudal system of master and servant world on a basis of mutual obligation. With the move to a cash economy, this bond of loyalty was broken- "I have done you better services than to be slighted thus"- the rhetoric here is that of the feudal system, the service Bosola has done should guarantee him a position within society, including the protection of the Cardinal. The Cardinal will have none of it- "you do enforce your merit too far".

Lucy Webster- cash economy

In a cash economy, roles are replaced by jobs, and each job demands a different identity- and a set of values. Bosola is forced to play any part he can in order to survive. Webster demonstrates how dangerous this is.

A radical re-telling of history- The Duchess of Malfi- Peter Morrison

The real Duchess of Malfi was born in 1478- Giovanni d'Aragona- she fell under the authority of her closest male relatives, her two brothers. In 1490 she married and her husband assumed the title, the Duke of Amalfi upon his father's death. The Duke died in 1498, leaving Giovanna a widow and a Duchess in her own right. Webster uses Giovanna's great misfortune to present a radical, and electrifying , critique of Jacobean society.

Painter

He retold events originally recorded by Matteo Bandello in his Novelle (1554), but the significance of Painter's version is that it is Webster's main source for his play.

Lady Arabella Stuart- context

She married Seymour in 1610 without King James' permission- this was a love match. She was locked in the Tower of London, and died in 1615 of malnourishment, lovesickness and heartbreak. There may well be a poignant reverberation of this in the Duchess's despairing outburst: "I'll starve myself to death".

Merit vs privilege

Act 3 scene 5: The Duchess spiritedly challenges established convention: "say that he was born mean, man is most happy when own's actions be arguments and examples of his virtue".

The Duchess then delivers her dog-fish parable: "our value never can be truly known till in the fisher's basket we be shown" (3,5)

Poison and political corruption

Antonio: "But if't chance some cursed example poison't near the head ,death and diseases through the whole land spread".

Bosola: "He and his brother are like plum trees that grow crooked over standing pools: they are rich and o'erladen with fruit, but none crows, pies and caterpillars feed on them". (1,1)

Antonio (about Bosola): "This foul melancholy will poison all his goodness".

“Pray thee, why dost thou wrap thy poisoned pills/In gold and sugar” (Duchess to Bosola)

Act 1 scene 1 summary

Antonio return to Court and so does Bosola. Bosola asks for "merit" for his service after serving seven years in the galleys for a murder that he committed for the Cardinal.

Act 1 scene 2

Bosola: "Let good deeds for good men covet good fame, since places and riches oft are bribes of shame. Sometimes the devil doth preach".

Act 1 scene 2- Description of the Cardinal and Ferdinand

Antonio: "He is a melancholy churchman"(Cardinal)

A: "A most perverse and turbulent nature"

Act 1 scene 2- political corruption- Ferdinand and Cardinal

Antonio about Ferdinand: "The law to him is like a foul black cobweb to a spider: he makes it his dwelling and a prison to entangle those shall feed him".

Antonio about the Cardinal: "He would have been Pope but he did bestow bribes”

Description of the Duchess

Act 1 scene 2: (Antonio): “the right noble Duchess”

“She stains the time past, lights the time to come”

Act 1 scene 2- Male authority

F: "She's a young widow; I would not have her marry again".

Marriage/status- (Act 1 scene 2)

Duchess: "diamonds are of most value... that have passed through most jewellers' hands".

F: "Whores by that rule are precious"

D: "I'll never marry"

F: "What cannot a neat knave with a smooth tale make a woman believe?"

F (1,2): “She’s a young widow, I’d not have her marry again”

Religious Imagery

"This godly roof of yours is too low built. Without I raise it higher. Raise yourself"

Antonio

"Their judicious king… quits first his royal palace of flattering sycophants” (1,1)

Description of Antonio- by the Cardinal: :”His nature is too honest for such business” (1,2)

“It locally contains neither heaven or hell" (about marriage)

"Ambition, madam, is a great man's madness"

To Bosola: "you would look up to heaven... the devil that rules i'th' air stands in your light".

“From decayed fortunes every flatterer shrinks; men cease to build where the foundation sinks” (3,3)

Marital context- Act 1 scene 2

Duchess: "Per verba presenti is absolute marriage"- a valid, secret marriage- if we say we are married- we are.

D: “We now are man and wife, and 'tis the church that must but echo this"

D: "I would have you lead your Fortune by the hand unto your marriage bed".

Misogynistic/sexist attitudes and views

Cardinal: "Most widows say (Duchess- "I'll never marry), but commonly that motion lasts no longer than the turning of an hourglass; the funeral sermon and it end both together"

C: "To view another spacious world i'th' moon, and look to find a constant woman there".

Ferdinand- madness, perverse nature in Act 2 scene 5

Ferdinand and the Cardinal found out that the Duchess had children with someone-they do not know who.

"Root up her goodly forests, blast her meads"

"Purge infected blood"

"Slight, weak bulrush as is woman"

"Boil their bastard to a cullis"

"I'll find scorpions to string my whips, and fix her in a general eclipse"

Language of disease/death

C: "Royal blood of Aragon and Castile, be this attainted" (2,5)

D: "this deadly air is purged" (3,1)

F: "this witchcraft lies in her rank blood"

Antonio’s last words- Act 5 scene 4

“Pleasure of life- what is’t? Only the good hours of an ague, merely a preparative to rest, to endure vexation. I do not ask the process of my death. And let my son fly to the courts of princes”.

Regaining of identity- Act 5

Bosola: “I will not imitate things glorious, no more than base. I’ll be mine own example”.

Subversion of religion

Cariola: “I do not like this jesting with religion, this feigned pilgrimage” (3,2)

Duchess: “Thou art a superstitious fool”

Act 2 scene 4- Cardinal and Julia- religion

Cardinal: “I have taken you off your melancholy perch, Bore you on my fist, and showed you game”, link to ideas of sexual act through phallic imagery: “game”= falcon, bird imagery. Jacobean views about adultery were not positive as it went against the Bible. Yet Cardinal was a religious figure. Perhaps negative image is rooted out of Webster’s personal religious views. Cardinal: “thou wast watched/ like a tame elephant”. Julia= elephant, grotesque; tame implies sexual desire. Links to views of women during the Jacobean era and how they were perceived as sexual beings.

Power

“He should have been the Pope…he did bestow bribes”.

TMT: “warm wex in handes plye”

The Duchess’ last words- Act 4 scene 2

“Heaven’s gates are not so highly arched as prince’s palaces; they that enter there must go upon their knees”- humility is required for salvation

“Mercy!”

Bosola- Act 5- spiritual counselor,guilt, death

“Remember you are a Christian”

“Return, fair soul, from darkness, and lead mine out of this sensible hell” (to Duchess- dies a second time)

“Where were these penitent fountains while she was living?”

“Black deeds must be cured with death” (5,4)

“We are merely the stars’ tennis balls, struck and banded which way we please them” (5,4)

Julia’s death and last words

C: “Thy curiosity hath undone thee: thou’rt poisoned with that book… I have bound thee to’t by death”.

J: “I go I know not wither”

Ferdinand’s last words

“'Whether we fall by ambition, blood or lust, like diamonds we are cut with our own dust”

Restoration of order

The Cardinal’s last words

“Sorrow is the eldest child of sin”

“I pray, let me be laid by and never thought of”

His death is genuinely ignoble- especially in terms of ars moriendi (Art of Dying)- his dying speech assures the audience of his ultimate insignificance:

Bosola’s last words

“Let worthy minds ne’er stagger in distrust to suffer death or shame for what is just. Mine is another voyage”

Restoration of Order- Act 5 scene 5

Delio: “To establish this young hopeful gentleman in’s his mother’s right…as soon as the shines, it ever melts both form and matter”. Positive social change? The horoscope earlier in the play stated that the child- the son would die an early and violent death.