The Duchess of Malfi Context 1623 - reign of James I

Jacobean Attitudes to Catholicism

Catholic's in Elizabeth's reign

• Elizabeth I had stabilised the religious situation from 1558

She had faced large amounts of opposition from Catholics - they had infiltrated England which eventually contributed to the attack from the Spanish Armada

• Jesuit Priests were Roman Catholics trained on the Continent to come to England and undermine Elizabeth's church

• In the 1580's and 1590's, the Jesuits attempted to take Queen Elizabeth's life a number of times, for example, the Babington Plot (1586). Even after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1589., they continued - a plot was discovered in 1594.

• In 1597, there were Jesuits in the English Cabinet.

• In 1605, a number of Jesuits attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament. This was unsuccessful.

Puritans in Elizabeth's reign

• She and her Archbishop, John Whitgift had attempted to eradicate the Puritan Threat

Puritans in James I's reign:

• James I comes to the throne in 1603 - he is a Puritan

• The Puritans were a group of Protestant reformers who wanted the church to be 'purified' of the Catholic Church. They had grown hugely in influence over the course of Elizabeth's reign but had also suffered persecution

• During 1603 and 1604, James I made a number of concessions which allowed for greater reform of the church.

• Puritans were becoming more vocal in Parliament

• After the Gunpowder plot of 1605, the Puritans played on the strong Anti-Catholic sentiments prevalent at the time.

Catholic's in James I's reign:

• The Roman Catholics had expected that James I would have been more lenient to them than Elizabeth. This was not the case and he had ordered all Catholic Priests to leave England.

• Consequently, A number of Jesuits decided to eradicate James I by blowing up the Houses of Parliament on the 5th November 1605 which was the State Opening of Parliament.

• This plot was circulated throughout the country and was commemorated by the King with the burning of both Guy Fawkes and the Pope

The Relics of the Saints:

In Medieval Times, Body parts of saints and pieces of 'holy' clothing were bought and sold throughout the Western World. This included the selling of bones, teeth and even heads. It was believed that the possessor of these relics would be rewarded and greatly privileged. 'Go set a figure for's nativity'(Act 2 Scene 2) emphasises this; by doing this, Antonio clearly believes that the new baby will be blessed

Webster's view on Catholicism

The presentation of the two brothers strongly satirises Catholicism, especially the Cardinal. He has an affair, he is a murderer and he is corrupt. This was a common held view by the majority of the population. Bosola even comments that the Cardinal is able 'to possess the greatest devil' [48].

Furthermore, in Act 5 the Cardinal forces Julia to kiss the Bible 'I will swear you to't upon this book'. This emphasises the contemporary view amongst may Protestants that Catholics had destroyed God's own word and made it evil.

Renaissance attitudes to madness

Hysteria

• Hysteria means womb or uterus

• Seen as a disease during the Renaissance

• Believed to have been caused by emotions and passions such as the Duchess' and Ferdinand's

Four humours

• Imbalance of the humours caused madness

• Duchess (Sanguine), Cardinal (Phlegmatic), Bosola (Melancholic) and Ferdinand (Choleric)

• Ferdinand's lycanthropia

Demonic Possession

• Spiritual possession of an individual

• Common fear at the time

• Darkness played against the fears of Demonic Possession, Ferdinand's lycanthropy

Witches

• The Renaissance introduced English persecution of Elizabethan Witches and Witchcraft

• Bosola and Old Lady, Duchess

• Witchcraft and sexuality

-James I considered himself an expert on witchcraft.

- In the sixteenth century a new Christian theory developed based on Christian theology, canon law and philosophical ideas. This theory was that a witch had made a deliberate pact with the devil - almost a form of a personal arrangement - but that a witch did not act alone. Therefore if one witch existed in a locality, there had to be more.

-The wholesale persecution of witches started in Scotland in 1590 when James VI was king.

- Witchcraft had been a criminal offence in Scotland prior to 1590 but action against suspected witches was limited. -However after 1590 and in the last thirteen years of the reign of James, Scotland fully accepted the Christian witch theory

-In 1590 a series of trials for treason began. Three hundred witches were accused of gathering to plot the murder of James. It is known that James had a morbid fear of violent death. Witches were accused of attempting to drown James by calling up a storm while he was at sea with his new wife. Other charges include trying to kill James by melting a wax effigy of him. Over one hundred witches were actually put on trial.

-James became interested in Witch craft in 1589 when he visited Denmark to meet his future wife. Witches were actively hunted out in Denmark where the theory of a demonic pact had been widely accepted. The king's journey back to Scotland proved to be a very rough and stormy one and one ship was lost. Witches were blamed - working in both Scotland and Denmark. When the Danish court made a reciprocal visit to Scotland in 1590, the topic of witchcraft was a topic of conversation.

-In 1591 Mary Napier was arrested for consulting a witch and linked to treasonable activity. She claimed to be pregnant at the time of her arrest. James wrote to the court ordering them to find out if she was pregnant or not and that if she was not, she should be burned. That Napier was a friend of Bothwell's also indicates that James was willing to use witchcraft for political ends. The court acquitted Napier - much to the anger of James.

-In 1597, James felt sufficiently knowledgeable about witchcraft that he wrote the eighty page "Daemononlogie". -In 1603, witches were still being arrested and of those arrested, half were executed. Between 1603 and 1625, there were about twenty witchcraft trials a year in Scotland - nearly 450 in total.

Dog Days and Sirius

• 'The sultry part of the summer, supposed to occur during the period that Sirius, the Dog Star, rises at the same time as the sun'

• Originally in areas around the Mediterranean Sea

• Links to Malfi - Italy, Bosola

• "Blackbirds fatten best in hard weather: why not I in these dog days?"

Renaissance Scepticism

What did the Renaissance replace?

• Middle Ages = 5th to the 15th century

• Following the fall of the Roman empire and the rise of Christianity

• Barbarians swept from the north through Europe, destroying libraries of classical works as well as architectural structures of antiquity.

• The Catholic Church replaced roman authority as the most powerful institution in Europe.

Bosola:

• As the most mathematically minded character, Bosola represents the scepticism which challenged the idea that truth is given by God.

Montaigne

• Greatly influenced by the discovery of Latin translations of the work of Sextus Empiricus, which reached Europe after the fall of Constantinople.

• Montaigne didn't intend to disprove beliefs. Instead, he tried to display the 'fullness of reality'.

• In the Duchess of Malfi, there is scepticism on the Cardinal's behalf in relation to Ferdinand's behaviour. As a bystander (for the most part) in the death of the Duchess and her family, the Cardinal merely expresses his concerns over Ferdinand's behaviour rather than actively trying to prevent it.

Sir Francis Bacon

• Sir Francis Bacon developed a method for philosophers to use in weighing the truthfulness of knowledge.

• Believed that the five senses were the most useful ways to interpret the world.

• Due to the possible inaccuracies of the five senses, Bacon though that we must doubt everything before assuming it is true.

• The superstitious elements in the Duchess of Malfi (horoscope, bloody handkerchief, reference to the devil) directly contradict Bacon's philosophies.

Stoicism

• The endurance of pain or hardship without the display of feelings and without complaint.

• An ancient Greek school of philosophy founded at Athens by Zeno of Citium. The school taught that virtue, the highest good, is based on knowledge; the wise live in harmony with the divine Reason (also identified with Fate and Providence) that governs nature, and are indifferent to the vicissitudes of fortune and to pleasure and pain.

• The Duchess is the most stoical character in the Duchess of Malfi; she welcomes her death with dignity.

Dance Macarbe

Danse Macabre

• The Dance of Death, also called Danse Macabre, is an artistic genre of late-medieval allegory (metaphor) on the universality of death.

• They were produced to remind people of the Frailty of life and how vain were the glories of earthly life.

• The Danse Macabre consists of the dead or personified Death summoning representatives from all walks of life to dance along to the grave, typically with a pope, emperor, king, child, and labourer.

Mirrors and Vanity

• A woman contemplating herself in a mirror symbolises vanity, sub set of pride and visually present in the middle ages through representations of Venus, of mermaids, manuscripts illustrations and church sculptures.' (The Cult of Saint Katherine of Alexandria in Late-Medieval Nuremberg: Saint ...)

• Duchess is most confident around mirrors in stage productions which perhaps embeds this view especially when she's speaking intimately with Antonio but looking at herself in a mirror.

The Black Death

• The disastrous mortal disease known as the Black Death spread across Europe in the years 1346-53

• This being a truly prevalent disaster fresh in the memory of people at the time, an essence of impurity causing illness can be identified in Malfi.

• The cause wasn't discovered until recently so religion would play a large part in judgement. Therefore the duchess' adultery and perceived 'sin' led people towards judging her fate.

• Excellent, as I would wish, she's plagued in art. - Ferdinand

Bruegel

• Brueghel's painting 'The Triumph of Death' may have influenced Webster as it is purely macabre and depicts the inevitability of death.

• 'And Fortune seems only to have her eye-sight To behold my tragedy' Duchess

Aristotle's theory of tragedy

Unities

• unity of action: a play should have one action that it follows, with minimal subplots. /

• unity of time: the action in a play should occur over a period of no more than 24 hours. X

• unity of place: a play should exist in a single physical space and should not attempt to compress geography, nor should the stage represent more than one place. X

Hubris

• Hubris - extreme pride or dangerous over-confidence; defiant behaviour to what is normal or challenging of the gods. This brings the downfall, or nemesis, of the perpetrator of hubris.

• Generally a sin in world religions. C. S. Lewis writes, in Mere Christianity, that pride is the "anti-God" state, the position in which the ego and the self are directly opposed to God: "Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind."

• In ancient Greek, hubris referred to actions that shamed and humiliated the victim for the pleasure or gratification of the abuser. The term had a strong sexual connotation, and the shame reflected on the perpetrator as well.

• Violations of the law against hubris included what might today be termed assault and battery; sexual crimes; or the theft of public or sacred property.

Hubris = The Duchess' defiance ('Raise yourself, Or if you please, my hand to help you'), Ferdinand's incestuous feelings ('Or my imagination will carry me To see her in the shameful act of sin')

Nemesis

• Nemesis (meaning 'to give what is due') was the spirit of divine retribution against those who succumb to hubris (arrogance before the gods). Another name was Adrasteia, meaning "the inescapable".

• Nemesis brought sorrow to mortals such as Echo and Narcissus. Narcissus was a beautiful and arrogant hunter who disdained the ones who loved him. Nemesis lured him to a pool where he saw his own reflection in the water and fell in love with it, not realizing it was merely an image. He was unable to leave the beauty of his own reflection and thus died. Nemesis believed no one should have too much good and cursed those who were too blessed.

• The Duchess : ('And fortune seems only to have her eye-sight To behold my tragedy')

Catharsis

• The process of releasing and thereby providing release from, strong or repressed emotions such as fear and pity.

• Came from the theory of the four humours or menstrual catharsis- purging of unwanted humours or blood is similar to purging of unwanted emotions by watching the results of them on stage.

Harmartia

• In tragedy hamartia refers to the protagonists fatal flaw in character or judgement which leads to their downfall - leading to Catharsis

• The Duchess ('This good one that you speak of, is my husband')

• Also used in Christian theology because of its use in the Septuagint and New Testament: acts of sin 'all have sinned' (Romans 5:12), the fall of man as everyone is 'under the power of sin' (Romans 3:9) and the 'original inclination to sin in mankind' which 'comes from the weakness of the flesh'.

Anagnorisis

A moment in a play when a character makes a critical discovery - in Aristotelian tragedy it is often the hero's insight into a relationship with an often antagonistic character - e.g when Ferdinand discovers that Antonio is the husband - 'You have shook hands with Reputation, and made him invisible'

Peripeteia

• Caused by Anagnorisis

• The reversal of circumstances, or turning point

• Includes changes of characters (e.g Bosola) but also changes of situation

• Biblical example: conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus

• 'Banished Ancona!' - the banishment

Offending the Gods

• Tantalus lived in the deepest part of the underworld, yet, the Gods were favourable to him and he was often invited to Olympus to dine

• Crimes: stole Ambrosia (gave immortality) and nectar to impress his friends, betrayed Zeus' secrets, stole the dog of Zeus - yet the Gods did not punish him for these

• He then invited all the Gods to a feast where he served his son Pelops to them for dinner - the God's realised and only Demeter eat a shoulder. Thus, the God's restored Pelops life and he was given an arm made of ivory by Demeter

• Zeus crushed Tantalus and destroyed his kingdom - punished with the eternal punishment

• Children punished - similar to Duchess'

• The family murder: Bosola: What do you intend to do? Ferdinand: Can you guess? Bosola: No Ferdinand: Do not ask, then.'

The Monarchy

Queen Elizabeth-

- The Queen believed in astrology and kept John Dee in her profession , he removed a troubling death curse of Elizabeth's. This superstition resonates to Antonio's horoscopes, nosebleed etc.

-Elizabeth I was also a political prisoner

- Romantic scandal of Robert Dudley v that of Antonio. However, Elizabeth did not marry Dudley as she knew he was below her rank and tainted with scandal.

Mary Queen of Scots

- Both The Duchess and Mary left one male heir to their throne. James was born to Mary and Darnley and in 1567 Mary was forced to abdicate in favor of her infant son.

-Both The Duchess and Mary were left widowed and re-married. In 1554 Mary was married to The Dauphin of France, Francis. He died in 1560. Four years later, Mary married her first cousin Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley.

-Both were independent woman. Mary could have given Lord Darnley the Crown Matrimonial, which would have made him a co-soverign of Scotland but she declined, resulting in a bitter relationship.

-Both the Duchess and Mary's second marriages collapsed. Mary's secretary David Rizzio (who was rumoured to be the father of her child) was killed by Darnley and his friends in front of Mary at a supper party. In 1567, Darnley was found asphyxiated. The scandalous union of Mary and James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell made the Scottish dignities rise against Mary.

- Both Mary and The Duchess were political prisoners. In 1568, Mary escaped Loch Leven and fled to the refuge of Elizabeth I who detained her and kept her prisoner for almost twenty years before executing her.

Bloody Mary

-Mary's marriage is the complete opposite to The Duchess', it was to Philip II the highest European power

-Where Mary was seemingly barren, The Duchess is fertile

Widows

Women were believed to have a much stronger sexual appetite than men. Widows as sexually experienced women were thought especially susceptible.

The Arrangement of Lewd, Froward and Unconstant Women (1615 Joseph Swetnam) - 'it is more easy for a young man or maid to forbear carnal acts than it is for a widow'

Life of John Webster

- Webster as the son of a wealthy coach maker and a prominent member of the Guild of Merchant Taylors contributed to the social class debate all his life. Shellist says it is 'the source of cultural conflict that is most frequently and intensely enacted'

-At age nine sent to The Merchant Taylor's School

-Education interrupted by the outbreak of the plague but education carried on in private tuition

-Educated at The Inns of Court - Inn of Chancery then the Middle Temple - studied Law

-In 1606, we find a record of John Webster marrying the seventeen-year-old Sara Peniall by special license in Islington, at that time a village outside London.

One reason for the obscure location is suggested by the fact that two months later the couple's first child, John, was born. The Websters had at least three more children

Source

Based on a historical event.

-In 1510 the widowed Duchess of Amalfi, Giovanna wed her chief steward Antonio Bologna after the death of her first husband.

- This brought down the wrath of her two brothers, one of whom, Luigi d'Aragona, was a powerful cardinal under Pope Julius II. Bandello says that the brothers arranged the kidnapping of the Duchess, her maid, and two of her three children by Antonio, all of whom were then murdered. Antonio, unaware of their fate, escaped to Milan with his oldest son, where he was later assassinated by a gang led by one Daniele Bozzolo

Homosexuality

There were persistant rumours that despite his marriage, James I was homosexual causing alarm as he promoted Robert Carr and George Villiers to the Privy Council.