DUCHESS OF MALFI:
Mary Beth Rose: the play collapses under its own contradictions
Patrick Lee-Browne: Juxtaposed the classical idea of fickle gods and the
necessity of revenge with a Christian understanding of salvation and God as the
ultimate dispenser of justice.'
John Russell Brown: the story of the tragedy was a syndrome for contemporary
issues
Lord David Cecil: it is the world as seen by Webster with an incurably corrupt
nature
Dominc Baker Smith: Webster’s God, unlike his devil, is a hidden one
T.S Elliot: Webster was much possessed by death
Duchess
Irving Ribner: The Duchess, not her brothers, stands for ordinary humanity, love
and the continuity of life through children.
Christina Lucky:
The Duchess acts on human impulses in the name of virtue only to discover that
she cannot control the consequences of her choices
A catalyst for social transformation and tragic recognition
Jenifer Panek: widows in Jacobean comedy are, in general portrayed as
welcoming the prospect of rape
Barbara Correl: Jacobean women are essential but threatening to power
John Kerrigan: what’s most remarkable about the Duchess is her faith
Rhian Williams: a woman of wonderful contradictions and reverberations
between poles
Fogster: man is woman’s servant in love but master in marriage
Dympna Callaghan: repeating the historic transgression of Eve
Bill Alexander: in many ways the duchess is an ordinary woman, which is
precisely her problem
Whitman:
The Duchess cannot be seen as a model of goodness
The strangulation of the Duchess is a way of Webster condemning the destructive
manipulations of the society around her
Mary Beth Rose: the play collapses under its own contradictions
Patrick Lee-Browne: Juxtaposed the classical idea of fickle gods and the
necessity of revenge with a Christian understanding of salvation and God as the
ultimate dispenser of justice.'
John Russell Brown: the story of the tragedy was a syndrome for contemporary
issues
Lord David Cecil: it is the world as seen by Webster with an incurably corrupt
nature
Dominc Baker Smith: Webster’s God, unlike his devil, is a hidden one
T.S Elliot: Webster was much possessed by death
Duchess
Irving Ribner: The Duchess, not her brothers, stands for ordinary humanity, love
and the continuity of life through children.
Christina Lucky:
The Duchess acts on human impulses in the name of virtue only to discover that
she cannot control the consequences of her choices
A catalyst for social transformation and tragic recognition
Jenifer Panek: widows in Jacobean comedy are, in general portrayed as
welcoming the prospect of rape
Barbara Correl: Jacobean women are essential but threatening to power
John Kerrigan: what’s most remarkable about the Duchess is her faith
Rhian Williams: a woman of wonderful contradictions and reverberations
between poles
Fogster: man is woman’s servant in love but master in marriage
Dympna Callaghan: repeating the historic transgression of Eve
Bill Alexander: in many ways the duchess is an ordinary woman, which is
precisely her problem
Whitman:
The Duchess cannot be seen as a model of goodness
The strangulation of the Duchess is a way of Webster condemning the destructive
manipulations of the society around her
