AO3/AO5 - Duchess of Malfi/The Merchants Tale

John Lennard, about Webster’s writing style

Webster deliberately attempts to confuse Audience

John Lennard, about Webster’s character

he is a satirist and a moralist

John Lennard, about Duchess of Malfi performances

Better when more stylised and less realistic

Lisa Hopkins, about the brother’s origins

originally spanish

Information about Yoruba performance

Bosola is a trickster god, set in 19th century nigeria

Lisa Hopkins, on country DoM is actually about

England

T.S. Eliot quote on Webster

“Webster saw the skull beneath the skin”

Andrew Marr quote on Webster

He was the Quentin Tarantino of his time

Performative Passivity

The idea that May deliberately acts weaker than she is in order to not be viewed as a threat/to get what she wants

Tolliver about relationship between the merchant and January

They are united by January’s mercantile approach to marriage

Tolliver about May’s Cuckholdry

purposefully ambiguous of whether January will father Damyan’s child

Kitteridge about the merchant

frenzy of contempt for ignorant men and hatred for women

Kitteridge about the tale

Chaucer exploits Fabliaux form to create a tale of warning

Beidler

January is emasculated by May who becomes the knight

Phillips

January’s marriage is an act against nature not just disgusting but ungodly

Tolliver about May

May is made of masculine fantasy

Hanson

May is devised out of January’s thoughts, just as Eve is of Adam