Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Critical Perspectives on 'The Duchess of Malfi':
- JW LEVER:
- cultural materialist critics.
- Focused on play's power relations.
- "the tragedy of state." (Lever.)
- Viewed the play as a
radical critique of the
existing political order.
- The court of Amalfi presents in
miniature the court of Whitehall.
- Ignored the question of
tragic femininity.
- R.S WHITE:
- Argues the Renaissance belief that
literature was intended to teach and delight
should be taken seriously.
- The play portrays distinct
moral and political
positions rather than
amorality.
- Play = a series of moral
awakenings e.g. the
strangulation of the Duchess
through which Webster
condemns the destructive
manipulations of the society
around her.
- ANDREA HENDERSON:
- The play anticipates the tumultuous events
later in the century e.g. the closing of the
theatres 1642.
- Duchess represents emergent
bourgeois values while her brothers
represent aristocratic values of
decadent self- display.
- Duchess represents the private
sphere of family and the
non-discussed private sphere
of sexuality.
- The play = product of ideological
transition - change from the world of
court to the family.
- KATE AUGHTERSON:
- Ending defeats and punishes the forces of
corruption, disorder and evil in the play
e.g. major characters die and acknowledge
the evil of their actions.
- Webster's ending is
ambiguous. Leaves
the fate of Malfi in the
hands of a young boy,
representative of
rebirth and hope but
easily manipulated.