Duchess of Malfi critics

Cards (13)

  • Dympna Callaghan: The Duchess of Malfi is an unusual central figure for a 17th century tragedy, not only because she is a woman, but also because [...] she combines virtue with powerful sexual desire
  • Dympna Callaghan: Webster's Duchess defies social and sexual orthodoxies
  • Dympna Callaghan: women were immoral, over-sexed, weak minded
  • Dympna Callaghan: Bosola is the instrument to her tragedy
  • Michael Billington: Webster uses the tragedy to offer a vision of human existence as chaotic and unstable
  • Michael Billington: destructive lusts of sexuality and power
  • Alexander Leggatt: She is by turns natural, unorthodox, courageous and in need of ordinary reassurance
  • Bernhardt-House: A modern psychological reading may well see Ferdinand's Lycanthropia on a Freudian level, i.e. as a manifestation of a deep-rooted sexual problem
  • James L Calderwood: Suggests Ferdinand's outbursts represent an identification of his “latent desire with her realised desire” - he associates her sexual fulfilment with his own unconscious yearning for her
  • Timothy Fox: Suggests Ferdinand not only longs for an incestuous relationship, but that “he and his siblings are the product of one”
  • Timothy Fox: Suggests that in imprisoning his sister Ferdinand is attempting to fulfil his lust. He also adds that in tormenting his sister with frolicking madmen designed to keep her awake at night, Ferdinand is envisaging his own rape of the Duchess
  • Lori Haslem: The apricot scene expresses widespread disgust with female sexuality. Pregnancy is likened to a "patient who has overindulged in the wrong sort of foods"
  • Brian Gibbons: Each brother is driven by a different obsession; Ferdinand's is sexual, the Cardinal's is social rank