malfi critics

Question 1

THE DUCHESS

Answer 1

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Question 2

Dympha Callaghan 2017 (the Duchess)

Answer 2

• ‘Webster takes on the challenge of representing a woman who is both virtuous and sensual, and who embodies the virtues of a sexually fulfilling married life’
• ‘The Duchess thus transgresses her society’s notion of proper female conduct” by “choosing a husband who is her social inferior’

Question 3

Emma Smith 2009 (the Duchess)

Answer 3

‘the Duchess is culpable of excessive sexual desire. The story is a moral one in which sexual desire, particularly women’s sexual desire, is punished’

Question 4

Dympha Callaghan (the Duchess and sexuality)

Answer 4

‘Unlike the ‘Virgin Queen’, the Duchess seeks marital intimacy rather than renouncing it’

Question 5

Joyce E Peterson (the Duchess)

Answer 5

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

Question 6

Frank Whigham (the Duchess)

Answer 6

‘privately assumes the unmistakably male tone of the Renaissance hero’

Question 7

Sean McEvoy (critics and Duchess)

Answer 7

‘it is strange that some critics have chosen to find Webster’s depiction of the Duchess’s healthy physicality as tinged with disgust’
‘she is brave, intelligent and vivacious’

Question 8

Andrew Marr (the Duchess)

Answer 8

‘Suffering turns her from a romantic widow to a tragic heroine’

Question 9

Emma Smith (the Duchess’s death)

Answer 9

‘A set piece of immense stoicism’

Question 10

SLEEPWALKERS

Answer 10

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Question 11

Mathew Beaumont 2015 (sleepwalkers)

Answer 11

• ‘He is an outsider to the Duchess’s household, and he constitutes a constant threat to its order; at least, parasitic as he is, he rapaciously exploits the slightest sign of internal disorder, including his mistress’s concealed pregnancy’
• ‘The Duchess of Malfi, in common with other Jacobean tragedies, is a play in which the night exercises a dangerous, if not lunatic rule or lure’

Question 12

JULIA

Answer 12

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Question 13

William Poel 1893 (Julia)

Answer 13

‘Julia is designed as a set-off to the Duchess; as an instance of unholy love in contrast to the chaste love of the Duchess’

Question 14

Peter B Murray (Julia)

Answer 14

‘The Duchess’s childbearing is thus set in the middle of Act II as a bright jewel against the dark foil of the false old woman and Julia’

Question 15

GREED,AMBITION

Answer 15

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Question 16

Kenneth Tynan 1960 (greed)

Answer 16

‘In the whole of Webster’s work, scarcely an act is committed that is not motivated by greed, revenge, or sexual rapacity’

Question 17

BOSOLA

Question 18

Michael Cordner 2011 (Bosola)

Answer 18

‘Bosola ‘is forged from contradictory imperatives … a craven need to be employed by those in power…matched with a deep revulsion from the kind of service that employment will entail.’

Question 19

Emma Smith 2009 (Bosola)

Answer 19

‘Bosola’s terrible agency in the play is that of the malcontent, a distinctly early modern phenomenon, a product of massive increase in secondary education under the Tudors, an educated man who cannot get preferement, a clever, isolated individual whose intelligence is turned to malignancy, or more precisely, to amorality’

Question 20

Kate Aughterson (Bosola)

Answer 20

‘He is a man of bitter resentment and eager willingness’

Question 21

Lucy Webster (Bosola)

Answer 21

‘In Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, lack of position, and social exclusion characterises the malcontent’
‘He wants to become embroiled within it’

Question 22

C G Thayer (Bosola)

Answer 22

‘Unquestionably one of the most complex and elusive in the major Jacobean drama’

Question 23

FERDINAND

Answer 23

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Question 24

Clifford Leech 1963 (Ferdinand)

Answer 24

‘The grossness of his language to her in Act 1 and the continued violence of his response to the situation’ is part of a long list of evidence for his incestuous desire.’

Question 25

Leah S Marcus 2009 (Ferdinand)

Answer 25

- ‘Webster’s portrayal of the Duchess’s twin brother Ferdinand also departs from the historical record in order to intensify the threat he represents'

Question 26

Frank Whigham (Ferdinand)

Answer 26

'Ferdinand's incestuous desire is determined by class paranoia'

Question 27

Leah Marcus (Ferdinand)

Answer 27

'He deploys fragmentary objects in a way that suggest the Catholic use of sacred relics as objects for display'

Question 28

Leah Marcus (Ferdinand)

Answer 28

'Webster's portrayal of the Duchess's twin brother Ferdinand also departs from the historical record in order to intensify the threat he represents' 'no sexual outlet beyond incestuous yearning for his sister'

Question 29

Farah Karim-Cooper (Ferdinand)

Answer 29

'His incestuous, misogynistic impulses force him to deploy dark means to achieve even darker ends' 'Darkness enables him to torment his sister with a dead hand and effigies of her family'

Question 30

MALFI

Answer 30

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Question 31

GK Hunter 1978 (setting)

Answer 31

A critic who argues the Italian setting in Jacobean drama is used ‘as a mode of human experience rather than as a country’.

Question 32

JW Lever (malfi)

Answer 32

'The court of Amalfi presents in miniature the court of Whitehall ... its heedless and heartless pursuit of privilege' 'Honours were openly bought and sold; marriages and divorces were steps to political influence'

Question 33

Nigel Wheale (malfi and courts)

Answer 33

'The staged versions of Italy in English drama during the Jacobean period not only provided negative stereotypes against which to define 'English' manners and virtues but the debased behaviours performed could also be turned against King James VI and I'

Question 34

THE CARDINAL

Answer 34

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Question 35

Nigel Wheale (the Cardinal)

Answer 35

‘When the Cardinal launches on his career of warrior-priest in Act 3 Scene 3, he takes his orders from ‘The Emperor’ himself, Charles V, the most powerful monarch of the age, Spanish Catholic ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, and a perpetual threat to England during the reign of Henry VIII.’

Question 36

Swetnam's Pamphlets 1615 (women)

Answer 36

'there is nothing more dangerous that a woman in her fury' 'the answer of a wise woman is silence' 'if she be rich and beautiful, then thou matches thyself to a she-Devil'

Question 36

GENERAL CONTEXT

Answer 36

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Question 37

TS Eliot on Webster

Answer 37

- 'Whispers of Immorality' 'Webster was much possessed. by death/And saw the skull beneath the skin'

Question 38

Peter Morrison on Webster's proto feminism?

Answer 38

'Duchess's determination to make her own decisions in such a profoundly patriarchal and misogynistic society, it is easy to see why some modern critics argue that Webster is a proto-feminist'

Question 39

Peter Morrison on merit vs privilege

Answer 39

'Webster's championing of personal merit over hereditary privilege'

Question 40

Helen Mirren (on the play)

Answer 40

'A feminist play about a woman who is fighting for her autonomy'

Question 41

Peter B Murray (the brothers)

Answer 41

'perverse and violent pair of Italian devils'

Question 42

Lucy Webster (the brothers) | ****

Answer 42

'The Cardinal and Ferdinand are responsible for supporting a society of parasites'

Question 43

Farah Karim-Cooper (light and dark)

Answer 43

'The conditions of a theatre such as the Blackfriars enabled the torture scenes to pack the emotional punch that Webster intended' 'Lighting became manipulable'