The Duchess Of Malfi Critics

Question 1

Theatre Critic Liz Schafer - duchess torture in act 4, scene 2

Answer 1

“Something of a slow-motion snuff movie about it all.”

Question 2

Kate Aughterton: Duchess’ independence

Answer 2

“Despite her political sovereignty, her brothers assume a patriarchal control over her body and sexuality, an assumption which extends over her political state.”

Question 3

Dympa Callaghan: female desire

Answer 3

In the renaissance, a female desire seen as ‘a disease and a monstrous abnormality.”

Question 4

Lisa Jardine, status

Answer 4

“She remarries a social inferior to emphasise the contrast between “lust and duty”

Question 5

Cecilia daileader: Duchess

Answer 5

Called the Duchess “a female Christ”

Question 6

Lord David Cecil - Webster

Answer 6

“the world as seen [by Webster] is of its nature incurably corrupt”.

Question 7

David Charles Gunby

Answer 7

“Without the Duchess, Antonio is aimless and apathetic.”

Question 8

Helen Mirren - feminism

Answer 8

“It is essentially a feminist play about a woman who is fighting for her autonomy.”

Question 9

Theodora A. Jankowski - The Duchess Challenges…

Answer 9

“The Duchess challenges Jacobean society’s views regarding the representation of the female body and woman’s sexuality.”

Question 10

Christina Lucky - Duchess impulses

Answer 10

“She acts on human impulses in the name of virtue only to discover that she cannot control the consequences of her choice.”