Malfi

Nanci Roider

‘[The play is] a cautionary tale which shows what can happen when women marry without being granted the “proper” consent.’

R. S. White on Duchess

‘The tragedy of a virtuous woman who achieves heroism through her death.’

Travis Bogard

‘The ultimate tragedy of Webster’s world is not the death of any individual but the presence of evil and decay which drags all mankind to death.’

Rupert Brooke on motive

‘[The Duchess of Malfi] lacks the breadth which comes from concentration on a master-motive.’

T. S. Eliot on chaos

‘[Webster is] a very great literary and dramatic genius directed towards chaos.’

T. S. Eliot on death

‘Webster was much possessed by death, and saw the skull beneath the skin.’

C. G. Thayer

‘The fact that the Duchess is killed in Act 4 (and does not die in the act of winning revenge) deflects attention away from her as the centre of the action and moves the play out of the category of revenge tragedy.’

R. S. White on ending of villains

‘[Webster’s villains] meet their deaths in ways which satisfy poetic justice.’

Shellist

‘It is the source of cultural conflict that is most frequently enacted in The Duchess of Malfi.’

Sir William Watson

‘Virtue in this disordered world is merely wasted, honour bears not issue, nobleness dies unto itself.’

David Cecil

‘Webster envisages evil in its most extreme form: and he presents it… as far more powerful than good.’

David Cecil on appearance vs reality

‘The world as seen by [Webster] is, of its nature, incurably corrupt. To be involved in it is to be inescapably involved in evil: all its apparent beauties are a snare and a delusion.’

R. S. White

‘[Webster’s villains] meet their deaths in ways which satisfy poetic justice.’

Kenneth Tynan

‘Webster’s characters die superbly, asserting their selfhood to the last breath.’

Rupert Brooke on triumph of ending

‘It is… in or near the moment of death that Webster is most triumphant. He adopts the romantic convention that men are, in the second of death, most essentially and significantly themselves.’

Rupert Brooke on ending

‘The end is a maze of death and madness.’

John Knox

‘The nature of female rule was unnatural.’

John Aylmer

‘A woman ruler could be “subject to” her husband.’

AO3

‘Nostalgia for the Queen may have contributed towards the reversal of gender roles in Webster’s play, as he portrays the Duchess as a “mannish” strong woman and Antonio as a “womanish” man.’

John C. Bean

‘The Protestant notion of the “companionate marriage” began as a rationalist humanist reaction to the emotionalism of courtly love.’

Theodora A. Jankowski on Renaissance wife

‘The Duchess is represented as being radically different from the traditional picture of the Renaissance wife.’

Many critics

‘The play affirms the ideal of companionable equality between spouses.’

Linda Woodbridge on marriage

‘Webster invites us to ask what is wrong with being or marrying a lusty widow.’

Linda Woodbridge on sexiness

‘Celebrates the Duchess as a “hero of desire”, suggests that the Duchess’ sovereignty might be “sexy.”’

Barbara Correll

‘The Duchess raises Antonio to reciprocity.’

Judith Haber

‘The Duchess effectively positions herself (and Antonio) both as subject and as object, both as penetrator and as penetrated.’

Theodora A. Jankowski on female sovereignty

‘The Duchess of Malfi is an unusual play … because it explores questions of rulership as they relate to a female sovereign.’

Kathleen McLuskie

‘The critical history of The Duchess of Malfi reflects an “unease with a woman character who so impertinently pursues self-determination.”’

Theodora A. Jankowski on gender

‘The Duchess of Malfi is a play that is clearly concerned with questions of gender ideology.’

Theodora A. Jankowski on family

‘We read the family as a Renaissance dynastic unit.’

Theodora A. Jankowski on Renaissance marriage

‘The nature of the Renaissance dynastic marriage served almost totally to objectify the woman.’

Theodora A. Jankowski on irregular marriage

‘The Duchess is further represented as manifesting her political authority by engaging in an “irregular” marriage — one that is not sanctified by any representative of the church.’

Theodora A. Jankowski on character of Duchess

‘In her marriage and its ramifications, the Duchess can be viewed as a subversive character.’

Theodora A. Jankowski on punishment of Duchess

‘Ultimately, the Duchess’ marriage and sexual politics are represented as so revolutionary that she must be punished for her actions.’

Theodora A. Jankowski on challenge of play

‘The Duchess of Malfi can be viewed as a subversive play because it challenges the basic concept of the early modern marriage.’

Rabkin

‘Their marriage is wilful and irresponsible.’

Frances E. Dolan

‘The Duchess of Malfi is famous for its remarkable, indeed improbably sustained, secrets.’

Dympna Callaghan on secrecy

‘Their marriage as “perpetually clandestine.”’

Wendy Wall

‘Clandestinity as “the Duchess’s idiosyncratic choice.”’

Theodora A. Jankowski on roles of Duchess

‘In this double position of wife and ruler, then, the Duchess becomes an uneasy and threatening figure.’

Irving Ribner on Duchess

‘The Duchess, not her brothers, stands for ordinary humanity, love and the continuity of life through children.’

P. B. Murray

‘The radiant spirit of the Duchess cannot be killed.’

R. S. White on Duchess’ ending

‘The tragedy of a virtuous woman who achieves heroism through her death.’

Many critics

‘The Duchess’s insistence on marrying a second time, choosing her own mate and preferring her steward is innovative and therefore admirable.’

Dympna Callaghan

‘… as a woman, she combines virtue with powerful sexual desire.’

Elizabeth Oakes

‘At the end she is, she says, the Duchess of Malfi still, and with that title she negates her relationship with Antonio: she becomes the woman carved in stone that Ferdinand wanted her to be.’

Theodora A. Jankowski on women’s sexuality

‘She challenges Jacobean society’s views regarding the representation of the female body and woman’s sexuality.’

Joyce E. Peterson

‘The Duchess improperly sets the private claims of her body natural above the public claims of her body politic.’

P. B. Murray on Antonio

‘Antonio is modelled on the ideal of Christian gentility.’

Michael Neill

‘Antonio can be no model of virtue: he is too like the equivocal Bosola.’

Muriel Bradbrook on Bosola

‘Bosola, the chief instrument in the Duchess’ betrayal and subjection, also bears the strongest witness to her virtues.’

Muriel Bradbrook on Bosola’s identity

‘With all his many roles, Bosola is never permitted the luxury of being a self.’

Irving Ribner on Bosola

‘[Bosola is] the most important unifying element in The Duchess of Malfi.’

Christopher Hart on Bosola

‘[Bosola is] a twisted misanthrope and cut-throat.’

Irving Ribner on brothers

‘The final act is designed to show that the way of the Arragonian brothers is that of madness and damnation, the complete descent of man into beast symbolised by the lycanthropia of Ferdinand.’

Christopher Hart

‘The two brothers are not driven by any sense of possessive outrage, however warped, but by a delight in malice itself, a “motiveless malignity” even against their own flesh and blood.’

Rupert Brooke on animalistic instincts

‘[Webster’s world] is inhabited by people driven, like animals, and perhaps like men, only by their instincts, but more blindly and ruinously.’

Lee Bliss

‘The Cardinal’s cool, unemotional detachment is more terrifying than Ferdinand’s impassioned raving.’

Muriel Bradbrook on Ferdinand

‘The sight of [the Duchess’] face awakens Ferdinand to what he has done.’

Frank Whigham

‘When Ferdinand looks down into his sister’s “dazzling” eyes, he sees himself, faces his own death too.’

Kathleen McLuskie on Cardinal

‘It is clear that the Cardinal’s description of the affair [with Julia] expresses only satisfaction of his sexual prowess.’

Muriel Bradbrook on Cardinal

‘The Cardinal knows already that he is in Hell.’

Muriel Bradbrook on Julia

‘[Julia is] a foil to the Duchess… who takes a man as she feels the impulse.’