Jacobean drama

Question 1

importance of jacobean era

Answer 1

• written and performed during the reign of James I in England, between 1603 and 1625

Question 2

when was it performed and where?

Answer 2

• 1613 by the King’s Men, the theatre company to which Shakespeare belonged

Question 3

religious attitudes

Answer 3

• Jacobean drama is typically cynical
• conveys cynical attitudes towards political and religious institutions through the corrupt Cardinal and violent Duke Ferdinand

Question 4

Jacobean drama often questions the social order

Answer 4

• The Duchess of Malfi’s resolution presents a reversal of social order.
• The nobility is killed and the Duchess’s heir is in the hands of a minor character, Delio.
• He ends the play, concluding that integrity and honesty will lead to a good reputation.

Question 5

great chain of being

Answer 5

• The Elizabethans believed that God had set out an order for everything, known as the Great Chain of Being.
• This also included the order of society and your place in it.
• The queen was at the top and controlled wealth and life chances, and inequalities further down the chain were accepted.
• According to the great chain of being,the Duchess is higher in the chain than Antonio. Therefore, in the play, Webster presents the Duchess defying the great chain of being in order to marry Antonio. I.e.
• The duchess marries for love rather than for status.

Question 6

Set in Italy

Answer 6

• Webster further links this to religious institutions, as he sets the play in Italy
• At the time of the play, to an English audience, Italy represented corruption and deception.
• Pope Alexander VI was known to have mistresses and illegitimate children
• This stereotype came from the complex politics of Italian nobility, in particular the powerful, corrupt families who controlled much of Italy
• Members of these powerful families would often be given religious positions in exchange for money or favours
• In the exposition of The Duchess of Malfi, Antonio Bologna, just returned from France, describes the French court
• He ironically compares it negatively to the court of Malfi

Question 7

the cardinal

Answer 7

• The characterisation of the Cardinal, who hides behind his title while committing murder, highlights the façade his religious status affords him
• His violence exhibits the abuse of power
• In particular, the Cardinal is blasphemous as he murders Julia
• From a position of trust (afforded by his title) he asks her to kiss the Bible
• The Bible is poisoned and this kills her

Question 8

why is Niccolo Machiavelli’s significant in duchess of malfi

Answer 8

• His teachings advocate principles of government in which political ambition is placed above morality
• His philosophy suggests the end justifies the means
• In The Duchess of Malfi, the Cardinal is believed to have bribed his way into his position
• Ferdinand wants the full family inheritance and does all he can to ensure the Duchess does not marry again

Question 9

wheres was websters plays performed

Answer 9

• The King’s Men, Shakespeare’s theatre company

Question 10

King James I,

Answer 10

• In 1603, when King James I became the new monarch of England, there was continued dissatisfaction regarding the violent suppression of Catholicism
• This led to the Gunpowder Plot.
• This conspiracy by a Catholic faction to bomb parliament and kill King James I in 1605 reflected the instability within the political system

Question 11

Hysteria

Answer 11

• 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

Question 12

Four humours

Answer 12

• Imbalance of the humours caused madness.
• Duchess (Sanguine)
• Cardinal (Phlegmatic)
• Bosola (Melancholic)
• Ferdinand (Choleric) Ferdinand’s lycanthropia

Question 13

Hubris

Answer 13

• 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

Question 14

Catharsis

Answer 14

• 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.

Question 15

Harmartia

Answer 15

• 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’)

Question 16

Anagnorisis

Answer 16

• 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.

Question 17

Peripeteia

Answer 17

• Caused by Anagnorisis
• The reversal of circumstances, or turning point.
• Includes changes of characters (e.g Bosola) but also changes of situation

Question 18

Offending the Gods

Answer 18

• 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.’

Question 19

Stoicism

Answer 19

• The endurance of pain or hardship without the display of feelings and without complaint.
• The Duchess is the most stoical character in the Duchess of Malfi; she welcomes her death with dignity.

Question 20

Mirrors and Vanity

Answer 20

• 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.

Question 21

Lady Arbella Stuart, 1589

Answer 21

• Like the Duchess, she entered into a secret, ill-fated marriage with a man who she loved but who was her social inferior.
• When she and her husband tried to escape England, she was captured and imprisoned in the Tower of London, where she died at age 39.

Question 22

Vives’ conduct book for Christian women

Answer 22

• Juan Luis Vives insists that, when it comes to choosing a husband, maidens should keep quiet.
• ‘it becometh not a maide to talke, where hir father and mother be in communicacion about hir mariage’,

Question 23

Attitudes towards female rulers, widows and sexuality

Answer 23

• Mary of Guise had ruled as regent in Scotland, and her daughter was Mary Queen of Scots; Catherine de Medici was regent of France; and not least of all, in quick succession, there were two female queens in England, ‘Bloody Mary’ and Elizabeth I.
• Yet the reality of women in government was too much for the Scottish Protestant reformer, John Knox, who notoriously denounced ‘the monstrous regiment’ (government) of women as a contravention of divine law.