Historical Context

• Giovanna d'Aragona was who The Duchess was based on, She was widowed at 19 and secretly remarried and when her brothers found out she was murdered for it in 1575
• The Cardinal, as a roman catholic priest, out to be celibate and unmarried. Protestant English audiences particularly enjoyed catholic priests depicted as immoral monsters, and Cardinals and Popes as villains, especially after the failed Gunpowder plot in 1605
• Webster sticks to the 5 conventions of a revenge tragedy.

  1. The revengers are always killed (Bosola, Ferdinand, Cardinal)
  2. The inclusion of the supernatural (The Echos)
  3. Madness (Ferdinand)
  4. A machiavellian villain (Cardinal)
  5. most murders happen in the final act
• Bosola sticks to the convention of a Malcontent; an outsider who comments and observes the play and is discontent with the social structure of the play with a variability in morality
• Madness was considered to be demonic possession with the sufferers considered to be 'sinners' who were often punished for their sickness
• when Webster wrote The Duchess of Malfi personal revenge was seen as just as bad as the crime you were avenging and was considered unlawful
• Revenge tragedy gave the audiences in Jacobean England a chance to address the wrongs in society which the court did not
• Originally performed in Blackfriars Theatre in London which had one of the most sophisticated audiences at the time, the theatre was also indoors and candlelit which was unusual as the Globe was outdoors
• with the theatre being candlelit they can control the lighting states in the play rather than in outdoor theatres where you couldn't control it, the lighting plays an important role in the play
• James 1/6 believed in the Divine Right Of Kings - Meaning he was only answerable to God, everyone else in parliament and the court was below him
• James 1 was rumoured to be queer as he had favourites and often picked 'Favourites' and promoted others seemingly on no merit
• Robert Carr was one of James 1's favourites
• James 1 put in fines after the gunpowder plot in 1605 for those who attended the catholic church of England as the plot was a "utter destination" of catholicism
• woman couldn't appear on stage so whilst the play is seen as a feminist piece the original Duchess would have been played by a man.
• virginity and chastity were praised in women
• James 1 was a 'catholic sympathiser' despite holding the same Protestantism held by Elizabeth because his wife Anna of Denmark was catholic
• Catholics would have been considered traitors, and Catholics would have had to practice their religion in secret
• class structure was incredibly rigid; it was very rare for anyone to marry outside the class they were born in
• Webster himself was middle-class
• patronage played a big role in Jacobean society with people willing to do anything to gain the favour of the court to have social mobility which was very difficult at the time
• The 'lusty widow' was a typical Jacobean period literary device which Webster uses in The Duchess however he can also be seen making fun of the stereotypical portrayal of women at the time
• the play is set in Italy but there are many references to England throughout the text such as when Ferdinand says "I am not so much a man as a devil" this could be interpreted as an allusion to King James who was known as the 'Wiseman from Hell'. This shows that Webster was writing about contemporary issues rather than just historical ones.
• Italy was a potent setting and theme in Theatre as it allowed playwrights and audiences to criticise James 1 court obliquely and comment on religious hypocrisy
• James 1 often sold titles and knighthoods to anyone with sufficient money as he flaunted his wealth so often he was in constant need of more money, He kighted 800 people in his first year alone
• industrialisation allowed for greater social mobility in the Jacobean period
• the transition from feudalism to capitalism was also happening around the time TDOM was being written, The Royal Exchange in 1571 put this forward and by the early 17thC more people were buying food than growing it
• Arbella Stuart (James 1 cousin) who married William Seymoure was forbidden by the king and she was imprisoned in the Tower of London and eventually starved to death
• Pope Alexander VI was seen as the main part of catholic church corruption in the C15 after being a Cardinal for 30 years in the Vatican, he had 4 unacknowledged children bent on his family's political and material success, his eldest son was a murderer who killed his political opponents and his daughter was married 3 times to create beneficial alliances
• English debt increased annually 140,000 under James 1
• Poverty greatly increased under James 1 due to colonial expansion, mass unemployment, large levels of taxation and low wages