Customer Reviews

The Duchess of Malfi (Drama Classics)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Of the "popular" editions of this play that by John Russell Brown (Revels Student Editions) and Elizabeth Brennan (New Mermaids) are both useful, though it must be said that no edition as yet does adequate justice to Webster's compexity - notably his presentation of Ferdinand. The play is both a tour de force and profoundly searching. It is perhaps the first major feminist play in England, with the Duchess presented as an outstandingly noble even if fallible character, the victim of her two evil "partriarchal" brothers. Of these, her twin brother Ferdinand is among the most intelligently conceived characters to appear on the Jacobean stage. Unknowingly (i.e. in his "unconscious") he is incestuously in love with his sister. Unable to cope with this "taboo" feeling, he tries to "repress" it unsuccessfully, and finally his ... "libido" comes to express itself in a violent wish to destroy her if he cannot ... own her, and he ends up believing himself to be a wolf, attempting to dig up her grave after he has had her killed. Obviously, then, this is a very Freudian work - anticipating Freud's insights brilliantly by some four centuries, and without lapsing into Freud's extravagantly improbable claims about such matters as the Oedipus complex. It is the working of the unconcious, as a reservoir of what we do not understand and cannot control, which is quite central in this play, and Ferdinand's ... confusion is potently contrasted with his sister's openminded, acknowledged and generous ... health. An outstanding play, recommended as among the best of its time (comparable in quality and interest to e.g. *Othello* or *The Changeling*). - Joost Daalder, Professor of English, Flinders University, South Australia

John Webster's play "The Duchess of Malfi" is a violent play that presents a dark, disturbing portrait of the human condition. According to the introductory note in the Dover edition, the play was first presented in 1613 or 1614.

The title character is a widow with two brothers: Ferdinand and the Cardinal. In the play's opening act, the brothers try to persuade their sister not to seek a new husband. Her resistance to their wishes sets in motion a chain of secrecy, plotting, and violence.

The relationship between Ferdinand and the Duchess is probably one of the most unsettling brother-sister relationships in literature. The play is full of both onstage killings and great lines. The title character is one of stage history's intriguing female characters; she is a woman whose desires lead her to defy familial pressure. Another fascinating and complex character is Bosola, who early in the play is enlisted to act as a spy. Overall, a compelling and well-written tragedy.

I do not feel Webster's "Duchess of Malfi" quite matches his "The White Devil." Nevertheless, it is still an excellent play. Only Webster could combine this much violence and beauty so well! Webster starts the play well when Antonio and Delio make comments on questionable characters. (Bosola and the Cardinal) Bosola is drawn well as the hired hand reluctant to join the demonic Ferdinand. 2.5 is captivating when Ferdinand explodes with fury upon discovering that the Duchess has married. The cardinal shows an interesting foil to Ferdinand when he tries to encourage caution. The fury exchanged between Ferdinand and the Duchess in 3.2 is memorable. Bosola offers a striking passage on politicians in 3.2. The tragic ceremony in 3.4 is sorrowful and yet beautiful. The parting of Antonio and the Duchess in 3.5 is very lamentable. 4.1 allows us to see that Ferdinand is not only evil, but demented as well. This paves the way for his final insanity. Bosola's hesitation to carry out the murder is well constructed. Ferdinand's final torture of the Duchess reminds us that he is not simply cruel, but psychotic as well. The Duchess is memorable when she faces her death with dignity. Webster DOES NOT stop here! Ferdinand actually taunts the hired killer and this paves the way for the final act. 5.3 is a scene that not even Marlowe or Shakespeare ever used. Fragments of Antonio's own echo foreshadow his death. Bosola's accidental murder of Antonio and his remorse pave the way for the final massacre! Even here, Webster keeps his efforts up. The cardinal's passage on fear of damnation keeps us in chills. Bosola's death and passage of remorse is a fitting end for this excellent work. My only complaint about this play is that the Cardinal could have been more complex.

It quite simply isn't allowed! John Webster has written a play that takes all of the conventions of the Elizabethan and Jacobean tragedy, and then promptly dispenses with them. For this reason alone, it is worth reading The Duchess of Malfi - simply to see a warped formula that works exceptionally well.

The play is slightly marred by Webster's wooden stage craft, but thankfully the originality of the story compensates for some stilted dialogue and awkward devices. For its time, Malfi was a sensational play - truly gruesome and bloody, with its special effects making it a Jacobean Hollywood Blockbuster.

The characters are perhaps the greatest success of this play. Webster's Ferdinand is vile, his Duchess is fiesty, yet at times she commits acts that condemn her to not being dubbed a "heroine", such as her fake pilgrimage. Antonio, the principle male "good guy" is so outrageously stupid that one has to hate him for being wetter than a Thomas Hardy novel. In fact, the microcosm of the play is almost without virtue, save for Pescara (an interesting play on 'piscari' - the Latin for fish, the Christian symbol). Finally, the play pivots on the role of Bosola, who is neither anti-hero, villain, hero or anything else for that matter. He is a fabulous and intelligent malcontent: the Macciavel personified.

Ultimately, if you are bored of reading the same formula within a tragedy, pick up the Duchess of Malfi and blow off the dust from the front cover. It is an often overlooked play, though its author has written a piece of theatre that is so strange and so difficult to perform that it is still largely snubbed by theatre companies today. By destroying the conventions of the tragedy to the extent that the end result arguably isn't a tragic play at all, Webster has written a play that is as important to the development of the modern tragedy as those which rigidly stick to the formulae.

In using this edition to teach a college course, I found that the editorial notes were vastly inadequate, and I ended up having to make a supplementary glossary for students. For that reason, I don't recommend the New Mermaids edition.

This is a review of the scholarly textual apparatus of the Arden edition of the play edited by Ms. Leah Marcus. It is not a review of the play itself.

School and university students: this is an edition full of useful notes and information and although irritatingly 'trendy' in parts it is the best current edition for you, as the footnotes are very extensive and the introduction has much that is useful.

Academics, researchers, specialists: a huge amount of work has of course gone into this edition and much of the work - indeed most of it - is useful and thorough. However, the negative aspects are so conspicuous that it is almost shocking that the edition was released without any publisher's final checking. I list below some observations about these faults, some of which are relatively minor and some egregious.

Style: a) LM indicates that writers were reserved about publicising their membership of livery companies (p4) but we have to wait for two pages to be told why;
b) appropriate formal style with sudden descents into bathos: Webster warns readers 'not to expect the play to conform to the classical rules ... because of his need to fit in to the scruffy venue of its performance.' (p7); the real duchess 'avoided the sexual profligacy that characterized the behaviour of some of her close relatives ... until she became front page news in Italy.' (p17)
c) LM draws our attention to 'the images of fragmentation and dismemberment [which] link up with contemporary issues like Protestant fear of engulfment by Catholicism ...' (p9) but then says nothing more about the matter.
d) LM frequently writes two paragraphs as one so that one finds oneself in the middle of the text suddenly being addressed about a completely new topic. The worst example is p44, 'Similarly ...' Judge for yourself.

Anomalies: a) LM tells us that the Duchess is a 'relatively good' person (p15), but on the next page she is 'an exemplar of heroic constancy.'
b) UK readers - this is a British edition from a UK publisher - do not need to be told that a 'pavement' is a 'walkway' (note to 5.ii. 317); in fact they may be confused by such a note. Also, the word 'moot' (t.n. to 1.ii.297) has an opposite meaning in Britain to that prevailing in the US.
c) LM quotes two sententiae (p51) which she describes as 'conflicting moral adages'. They are not. Judge for yourself.
d) the 'they' of t.n. to 5.i.6, ' 'cheat', has no obvious referend. The lands? The letters?

Absurdity: a) LM's commitment to a feminist reading of the play leads her in strange directions. Evoking parallels between the eponymous heroine and Chaucer's Griselda, she argues that allowing her brothers to abuse and vilify and ultimately murder her, far from being any kind of weakness, is triumphantly assertive. Thus, she says of Griselda that 'she never says no to him and therefore never allows him to override her own wishes.[This is complete nonsense. All critics unanimously over the centuries agree that Griselda the mother does not 'wish' her two children to be taken away from her for over a decade and be, as it is assumed, killed.] Griselda therefore deconstructs the power of the tyrant by showing it to be without limits. Similarly, paradoxically, the Duchess preserves her identity and self-mastery precisely through her constancy and her acquiescence in her brothers' long list of torments.' (p38) By what grostesque intellectual contortions, initiated by the necessity to follow the latest academic fad, however lunatic, can a university teacher allow herself to pen such fatuous statements? We do not, in the real world, in a lawcourt for example, argue that a murderer has been worsted by her victim.
But it gets even worse, for the paragraph ends with the view that the tormenting brothers are actually themselves the victims: 'they vicariously punish their own unacknowledged appetites by tormenting her.' (p38) [Actually, they are indulging those appetites ...] This is bad even by the standards of American anti-intellectual christo-fascist ideology.

b) Webster's play reflects details about the 'real' duchess' story which he could not easily have known. LM suggests this explanation: 'perhaps he was so preternaturally attuned to the Duchess' story that he "invented" circumstances that were, unbeknownst to him, supported by the historical record.' This is shocking drivel, even for someone living in a supernaturalist theocracy.

Textual: a) the discussion of Q2's deviation from Q1, the base text, involves farcical over-reading of the differences. See p85 ff.
b) Q4's emendation of 'they'd take me hell' (1.ii.183) to insert a 'to' is ignored by LM; her reasons are flimsy.
c)

Errors: a) a 'roaring boy' (t.n. to 2.1.18) does not mean someone 'foppish' - quite the reverse, it's much closer to British English 'yob'
b) LM's paraphrase of 5.ii.96-7 is wrong. 'For, though I counselled it,/ The full of all th'engagement seemed to grow/ From Ferdinand. ' does not mean that the Cardinal is 'disclaiming responsibility for the precise method employed in the Duchess' death' (t.n.) but that Ferdinand was more energetic and forceful it putting the plan into operation.

Plagiarism; scores of notes are borrowed from the 1964 Revels edition of J R Brown, without acknowledgement. Many are almost verbatim. See, for example, LM's t.n. on 'Switzer' (2.ii.37) which is almost identical. LM mentions Brown's edition at the start of her lengthy acknowledgements (xvi-xviii) but does not indicate that she has received any help, guidance or information from it. This is the worst, and most outrageous aspect, of LM's edition.

John Webster will probably never be as popular as William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, or even Cliff Marlowe. Nevertheless, his writing is quite impressive. His plays came out about the time Shakespeare was putting out his final plays. As the play begins, we meet Bosola. While he is a murderer, he offers several intersting passages, and he is not quite a 2d villain. Bosola expresses his dislike for Duke Ferdinand and his brother the Cardinal. This opinion is shared by the Duchess's eventual husband Antonio. This allows Webster to prepare the villains of this story. The wicked Ferdinand expresses his wish for his sister (the Duchess) not to marry. Eventually, we will learn that he wants control over her estates. (How unheard of! Especially today!) He asks Bosola to spy on the Duchess. Bosola is a bit hesitant, but he proceeds. Well, the Duchess against her wicked brother's request marries Antonio secretly. Some time passes, and Bosola suspects that the Duchess is pregnant. While Antonio suspects the foul play of Bosola, he is basically a loving, but not so able man. Ferdinand of course finds out that his request has been disregarded. Interestingly, the cardinal comes off a little better when his cautious side contrasts with Ferdinand's rages. Onto Act 3. The Duchess and Antonio now have children. While Ferdinand knows the Duchess has married, he does NOT know Antonio is the husband. The poor Duchess makes the mistake of appealing to Bosola for help, and of course all is found out. Antonio is banished to Ancona. The parting between Antonio and the Duchess is quite sad. But all is not lost. Antonio flees to Milan and they may still be together. Sadly, hope disappears as the Duchess is arrested. Ferdinand orders Bosola to murder her, and while Bosola does hesitate, he performs the cruel murder of the Duchess. It is interesting that Bosola's evil deeds are often accompanied by hesitation and regret, as well as some interesting passages on the harsh truths of the human condition. But Webster does not stop here. Ferdinand's cruelty gives way to insanity and he taunts Bosola for carrying out his orders. Onto the final act. Poor Antonio (not knowing his wife is dead) has heard of Ferdinand's insanity. He thinks perhaps he can reconcile with the Cardinal. Soon we see that the cardinal is not quite an accomplished psychopath. With Ferdinand gone, he sinks further and further into panic trying to cover the bloody mess. In a well done scene, fragments of Antonio's echo foreshadow his downfall. Bosola accidentally kills Antonio and is filled with regret. The final scene begins with the cardinal giving a passage on fear of damnation. In a brutal massacre, Bosola, Ferdinand, and the Cardinal all die. The play ends with a restoration to order by the son of Antonio and the Duchess, but like Shakespeare's "King Lear," it doesn't take away the sadness of the play. Overall, it's a good play that combines an interesting variety of villains, romance, tragedy, suspense, horror, and dark comedy.

This review contains spoilers.

That John Webster's birth records were quite probably destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666 is a fitting biographical fact in light of reading "The Duchess of Malfi." It perfectly highlights the senseless destruction, both physical and spiritual, that permeates this play. The duplicity, violence, and familial division rival anything that you can find in Shakespeare. While the poetry itself doesn't quite reach the Shakespearean firmament in its baroque floridity, the language is wonderful, and just as full of double entendre and puns as the greatest of Shakespeare's plays are.

The action is relatively straightforward. The Duchess of Malfi, whose overbearing brothers Ferdinand and the Cardinal insist that she never re-marry for fear that they might have to share her wealth with someone else, disobeys them and asks Antonio, one of her stewards, to marry her. Several years pass, during which the Duchess has two children by Antonio, while the brothers remain ignorant of the marriage, but they eventually find out. In an attempt to escape Ferdinand's wrath, Antonio flees to Ancona. Bosola, the Cardinal's goon, chases them in hot pursuit. The Duchess, her two younger sons, and her female servant are all killed on Bosola's instruction. Bosola, long upset by the Cardinal's venality, decides to revenge the Duchess and her children. The Cardinal, after murdering his mistress to keep her quiet, plans to kill Bosola, too, but instead kills Antonio who has since returned to Malfi. Just to drive home the idea of complete and utter wanton cruelty, the Cardinal, Ferdinand, and Bosola all die in a final melee. Just when you think all hope is lost, the Duchess' oldest son appears on stage in the final scene to take charge of a court that has destroyed itself because of its singular bloodlust. However, Webster leaves little room for the reader to imagine matters getting any better.

While Bosola seems like he might be the least interesting character because he has the least qualms with murder, he shows some interesting moments of moral ambiguity and even clarity, which makes his development interesting to watch. Needless to say, by the end, you're left feeling rent in two by the treachery, deceit, and duplicity of it all. The Duchess' son does not provide the necessary Aristotelian catharsis, and instead of a court being wholly purged of bad seeds, you feel that that he will end up a young victim in further machinations, another courtly pawn.

While others seem to not have appreciated the introduction and editorial notes, I rather enjoyed them and thought they shed some light on the production, composition, and historical background (yes, this is based on historical events - can you imagine?) As the footnotes are located at the bottom of the page, you don't have to flip back and forth between pages - one of my bęte noirs when it comes to Penguin Classics editions. All in all, I look forward to reading more New Mermaids in the future, and I especially appreciate their effort at trying to revive Elizabethan and Jacobean drama.

I'm doing this Elizabethan play for my Literature course now, and I found it difficult to grasp at first, but it got easier as I delved further into the plot. Having prior experience with Shakespearan texts would surely make reading this play an easier ride though. The central concerns are timeless: forbidden love, societal and patriachal forces versus the courageous individual, twisted fate - The Duchess of Malfi falls in love and marries her stewart, Antonio, and is thus persecuted by her two brothers, the Cardinal and Ferdinand, with the help of the ambiguous Bosola, the prototype malcontent. What stands out in this play is its twisted violence and surprising plot manuveres, but these only serve to bring out in a unique manner the ultimate message of the play - the triumph of the human spirit.