Key AO3: The Duchess of Malfi

AO3 = Social, Historical and Cultural Contextual References

AO4 (Intertextuality) = Blue

Link to The Duchess of Malfi = Purple

Historical Context

Giovanna d’Aaragona (1478-1511)

- Her father died of poisoning before her birth, so she fell under the authority of her brothers
- She was married off at 12, and her husband assumed the title of Duke of Amalfi
- However, he died 8 years later, and she became both the Duchess of Amalfi and a widow

Webster’s play was based on William Painter’s The Palace of Pleasure

- Webster selectively adapts Painter’s work, using Giovanna’s misfortune to present a radical,
electrifying, critique of Jacobean society
- Webster’s Duchess ‘stains the time past’ as she highlights the immorality of an archaic social
system that denies fundamental human rights to women
- She also ‘lights the time to come’, so her aspirations are what we continue to aspire toward
in modern day society

Women

Witchcraft
- Witchcraft would now be seen as a form of misogyny. It was typically used against poor,
single women in the Jacobean Era who had few people to protect them
- They were blamed for unfortunate natural events, e.g. dying crops
- Elizabeth I passed the 1563 Witchcraft Act allowing a ‘witch’ to be killed
- James I is known for his belief and pursuing of witches, written in Deamonology in 1597
- He introduced harsher laws, punishments and torture methods in his witch hunts, believing
that because women were frailer and weaker than men, they were more susceptible to the
clutches of the devil

Roles and Responsibilities

- Women were expected to obey and respect their husbands
- Inferior to the male ‘superiors’
- Surplus of domestic roles and expectations, so they were unable to reach high achieving
positions, e.g. landowning

Theatre
- In theatre, women played a variety of roles encompassing traits that represented anxieties
surrounding female autonomy
- Despite this, female characters served as a foil to emphasise the male characters’ traits
- Theatre was the only place where ‘cross-dressing’ was not punishable by imprisonment
- Queen Elizabeth was the only royal woman to not get married, going against the societal
norms

‘The male gaze’

It captures the way in which women are viewed by men, and the purpose with which they are
viewed.

It seems to be a means for encouraging male superiority and the idea that women exist only to
satisfy what their male counterparts have set out for them.

‘Proto feminist’ (Webster)

This describes people who actively put forward feminist ideologies in their opinions and works in a
time with profound patriarchal and misogynistic tendencies.

It is almost as if proto feminists assist with the introduction of feminism into a society that is neither
familiar with it nor inclined to it.

First Genesis Story

- It was believed that Eve was created from Adam’s rib, but this was Adam’s lowest floating
rib and therefore naturally crooked
- Since Eve was created from a crooked rib, many believed she was also defected
- Jacobean works incorporate this idea that women are less potent than men and unable to
reach the masculine standard
- It seems almost as of this interpretation of the Genesis story is relied upon to justify the ill
treatment of women in this period

Patriarchal Frustrations
- There could be things happening inside women’s bodies, both emotional and physical things
that should not and cannot be under male control
- The Duchess tries to harness this idea by concealing her pregnancy and taking control of her
own body

In ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore’, Annabella touches on a great mystery of the Renaissance, what goes on
inside women’s minds and bodies. With this Renaissance fascination, corprses were dissected in
lecture halls that uncannily resembled theatres.

1610
- There is a rush of female tragic protagonists such as Webster’s Duchess and Vittoria,
Middleton’s Beatrice-Joanna and Ford’s Annabella
- They focus on the changing ideas about the relationship between the body and the soul,
between men’s bodies and women’s bodies
- Although all these women are beautiful, the men around them approach with fear and
suspicion of what may be concealed inside their minds and bodies

Webster had to introduce a ‘flaw’ in the characterisation of the Duchess, to conform to the
stereotypes of the Jacobean audience.

This is because the role of women and their nature was defined very specifically in this era.
Personality and individuality in a women could suggest they were unfit to successfully carry out their
duties as housekeepers and taking care of the wellbeing of her family.

Duchess vs Cordelia (King Lear, Shakespeare)

 - The Duchess lies to her brothers several times about Antonio and her soliloquies seem
disappointingly general and haughty, rather than eliciting our sympathy and forming a
conspiratorial alliance with the audience
- Webster wastes an opportunity to get the audience on her side
- This contrasts with Cordelia in the opening scene of King Lear, where it is important for the
audience to understand where their sympathies should lie. She can make a connection with
the audience, unlike the Duchess

Social Class/Society

‘Melancholy’

It was viewed by anatomists and physicians as the result of imbalances of the ‘humours’ in the body.
It was seen as a mental disease caused by an excess of black bile

Large scale works demonstrate the currency of this idea in Webster’s time, such as Treatise on
Melancholy (1586) and The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)

‘Malcontent’ – It is a common characters type in the early modern drama who is dissatisfied with
social structures and other characters

Social Hierarchy
- Influenced heavily by the Great Chain of Being
- In Malfi, language replicates intangible socio-political tensions in a staged space reflecting
the central power anxieties at the heart of these tensions back to the theatre-going public
- Bosola plays a pivotal role that expresses the dogmatic self-preservation of the aristocracy

Bosola is a scholar reduced to mercenary. This is because Tudor and Stuart England had a surplus of
highly educated, but underemployed young men who were seen as potential instigators of rebellion.

Upper Class
- The upper class consisted of the English aristocracy, royal court, and landowners
- Typically sent their children to grammar school, then Oxbridge
- Popular entertainment involved feasts, banquets, gambling
- Wealthy noblemen formed theatre companies, and paid people to act in a group

Yeomanry
- Yeomanry were the Jacobean middle class who relied on their own businesses to make
money
- A simple lifestyle involving simple meats, houses made of wood

Peasants
- Peasants were the lower class of society

Secret Marriages
- There was a longstanding tradition of hand fasting where the couples could pledge to one
another in secret
- By clasping their hands together, they could say they are married
- These had considerable legal force so they could sometimes force their families’ hands into
allowing them the marriage and gain the public blessing they desired
‘Machiavelli’
- Italian author of The Prince (1532)
- This was an early work of political philosophy that was incredibly widely discriminated
- It promotes ideas of pragmatism over idealism
- Its disregard for morality shocked contemporaries
- Bosola is most adept in deploying Machiavelli’s principles as he is most opaque in motivation

Common placing – It was the most common mode of renaissance reading

This was a way for readers to identify readily applicable lines that can be taken from their context
and placed under readings like death, kingship or love in a commonplace book. This is because
people did not always read for the plot, but instead for the ‘good bits’, which refer to the good
linguistic bits.

Feudal System – Master and servant worked based on mutual obligation

Cash economy – Servants are employed in exchange for cash, the initial bond of loyalty in the feudal
system was broken

Implications of Feudal v Cash

- Feudal meant offering someone ‘service’ had a role in society, and this gave them a means
of support and identity
- With cash economy, roles are replaced by jobs and each job demands a different identity
and set of values
- Bosola is forced to play any part he can to survive, the danger of this is represented
throughout the play

Religion

James I
- James I believed in Christian unity and distrusted extremists (C + P)
- The Gunpowder Plot in 1605 framed Catholics to show James that Catholics posed a direct
threat to him
- Uniformity of religious worship among the people was a vital political priority during the 17 th
Century

Influence on the Church

- As a result of the Gunpowder Plot, he created harsh legislation against Catholics from
practicing the religion
- This legislation required any citizen to take an oath entailing a denial of the pope’s authority
over the King which led to people being outwardly protestant but remaining Catholic in
private
- James sough to keep the Church of England under his monarchical rule as he believed that
the ‘Divine right of Kings’ was a fact. This refers to the idea that the King was appointed on
by God and therefore inherits the right to rule directly from the will of God

Malfi
- Explores religious and social corruption and how these factors affect families and other
relationships
- There is a focus on the Roman Catholic Church, during the Protestant Reformation
 - Webster says ‘Religion remains a guiding principle that allows people to behave in a
particular manner in the pursuit of their spiritual goals’
- While Webster sometimes shows religion to be a tool used by the suffering to find comfort,
it’s more commonly used by the powerful to seize or maintain power, and by the wicked to
justify themselves and hide their terrible sins

This play puts Catholicism on stage for an early modern English audience in order to place an
indignant satire against the Catholic Church which is represented wholly by the truly corrupt
cardinal.