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Summary OCR English Literature A Level Notes: Comparing the Duchess of Malfi with Chaucer's The Merchant's Tale
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Part of Drama and poetry pre-1900 / Paper 1
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CHWEBAO3 50%
Comparison 25%
AO1 12.5%
Critics 12.5%
The Merchant’s Tale, a fabliau extracted from The Canterbury Tales and written circa 1390s
and The Duchess of Malfi, a Jacobean revenge tragedy first performed at the Blackfriars
theatre in 1614, (revived in 1617 and published in quarto in 1623)
DofM 1st performed 1614 at the Blackfriar’s theatre.
o Used to be a monastery – catholism no longer state faith so converted to
theatre.
o Webster was writing for this theatrical space as a moment requires complete
darkness (can’t have in open air theatre) – when F comes to visit the duchess
after he promises he will never see her again
o It cost 6 pence to attent (globe is 1 pence) – more expensive & cant hold as
many people therefore webster writing for a more sophisticated audience.
o James Shapiro argues more women in audience as it was seated therefore
more comfortable.
DofM published into Quarto 1623.
Power, Class
Negative court life
- Ferdinand doesn’t like people laughing at a joke that isn’t his – this tyranny parallel’s
January’s.
- Castruccio becomes a Placebo like figure who says that he would never laugh at a
joke unless someone else has laughed before him.
- Later when Bosola challenges F’s belief that he is complicated character and F
doesn’t get mad at his plain speaking, he is actually touched as he lives in a world
where no one ever challenges him
- January by contrast prefers sycophants (Placebo) to plain speakers (Justinus)
- They also all backchat each other
‘sycophants’
- DOFM: Antonio says that the French court is better than the Italian one because they
removed their sycophants
- This occurred in 1617 – the play was first performed in 1614 and the quarto was
published 1623 – this would’ve been added to the play to keep it topical.
- Webster added information following the 1614 production and 1623 quarto:
- Including Sycophants removed from French court in 1617 & the story Arabella Stuart:
1
, o Events of DofM uncannily mirror.
o She secretly marries William Seymour in 1610– when james finds out he was
very unhappy as threatens his dynasty.
o James forces them to divorce (like A&D) puts them on house arrest (like
A&D), they try to escape but are caught half way across english channel (like
A&D)
o They were also a love match rather than an alliance aimed at securing
successiom.
o 1615 Arabella starves herself to death (webster possibly added this detail to
the 1623 quarto to make more relevant and anti-jacobean).
o ^ ‘The church enjoys fasting: I’ll starve myself to death’
- Example of Opposition Literature:
o Texts of the periofwhich are critical of King James but have to do it covertly
(censors to make sure no anti-stuart propaganda).
o DofM is crirical of Italy and Catholics BUT also about England & James (1603-
1625) – it’s a double play
o Margo Heinemann (1980) coined the term in her book ‘Puritanism and
Literature’
- By 1614 King James has a reputation for tyranny
- Between 1610-1613 he adopted personal rule where he only called on parliament
three times
- Sycophants: Robert Carr and George Villiers
- Allusions to England:
o The echo scene depicts a post-reformation English landscape of ruined
abbeys – as opposed to an Italian landscape where Catholicism still had sway.
o ^shakespeares refrence: ‘bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang’
(sonnet 73)
o ACT 5 also has a London location ‘Barber-Chirurgeon’s-Hall’
o John Russel Brown notes the peculiar allusions to London in The White Devil
(webster) and similar claims about the covertly English context could be made
about DofM
- More on sycophants:
o There is a dramatic irony as when the duchess tells her court that she has
sacked Antonio, they all talk nastily about her ex-empolyee as they think its
what she wants to hear.
o Bosola however speaks well of him which leads the duchess to tell him the
truth (husband and 3 kids)
‘fountain’
- Antonio’s image of good people at the top has a positive trickle down affect
- If Bosola exists the cardinal and Ferdinand have to as well – Bosola fell into the
galley’s by serving the Cardinal
2
, - Webster is thinking about power/authority/politics – George Benard Shaw/Tussard
Laureate says that wesbter’s play was just sensationalist
- Possible thinking about stuart court in Jacobean England – people were looking back
at Elizabeth’s reign with nostalgia – wesbter exploits this nostalgia by centralising a
female figure
Their destructiveness
- Bosola has an image shows that destructivness is common to all men at all levels in
society
- The difference is scale – a farmer can make a farmers life hard, a prince can blow up a
city
- Delio describes their mouths as ‘like a deadly cannon that lighens ere it smokes’
Bosola says he prays once all the court is asleep (when A asks him why he is wandering the
palace when he told everyone to stay in their rooms)
^ possibly not just evil Italian courts but also English
The madmen
- Ferdinand sends madman to the duchess in imprisonment
- AO5: as an audience we have seen all these people before (theatre uses the same
actors we have seen already) – this implies that Malfi itself is mad and its society
values are mad
LOMBARDY:
- ‘Lumbardye’
- ^ Lombardian lords had a reputation for tyranny – January is a comic tyrant
- ^ location also associated with banking and brothels which brings ideas of money
and sexuality into play
‘freendes’
- Claims they are friends but treats them like servants
You’ve heard my ‘entente’, so now ‘assente’
- The rhyme in two lines crystallises January’s weak mindedness.
- His councillors must all assent to his intent.
Placebo and Justinus
- Justinus: identifies him as a positive figure BUT he is aligned with the merchant’s
idea of just and not necessarily the readers
- Placebo: meaning ‘I shall please’
o Agrees wholeheartedly that ‘so ful of sapience’ is January that his decision to
marry is the correct one (sycophant)
o ‘I nevere with noon of hem debaat’ - Placebo will never challenge those
above him and he is proud of this
3
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