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Rating: 
Summary: Bloody, Gory, and Beautiful
Review: I do not feel Webster's "Duchess of Malfi" quite matches his "The White Devil." Nevertheless, it is still an excellent play. Only Webster could combine this much violence and beauty so well! Webster starts the play well when Antonio and Delio make comments on questionable characters. (Bosola and the Cardinal) Bosola is drawn well as the hired hand reluctant to join the demonic Ferdinand. 2.5 is captivating when Ferdinand explodes with fury upon discovering that the Duchess has married. The cardinal shows an interesting foil to Ferdinand when he tries to encourage caution. The fury exchanged between Ferdinand and the Duchess in 3.2 is memorable. Bosola offers a striking passage on politicians in 3.2. The tragic ceremony in 3.4 is sorrowful and yet beautiful. The parting of Antonio and the Duchess in 3.5 is very lamentable. 4.1 allows us to see that Ferdinand is not only evil, but demented as well. This paves the way for his final insanity. Bosola's hesitation to carry out the murder is well constructed. Ferdinand's final torture of the Duchess reminds us that he is not simply cruel, but psychotic as well. The Duchess is memorable when she faces her death with dignity. Webster DOES NOT stop here! Ferdinand actually taunts the hired killer and this paves the way for the final act. 5.3 is a scene that not even Marlowe or Shakespeare ever used. Fragments of Antonio's own echo foreshadow his death. Bosola's accidental murder of Antonio and his remorse pave the way for the final massacre! Even here, Webster keeps his efforts up. The cardinal's passage on fear of damnation keeps us in chills. Bosola's death and passage of remorse is a fitting end for this excellent work. My only complaint about this play is that the Cardinal could have been more complex.
Rating: 
Summary: A Literary Rulebreaker
Review: It quite simply isn't allowed! John Webster has written a play that takes all of the conventions of the Elizabethan and Jacobean tragedy, and then promptly dispenses with them. For this reason alone, it is worth reading The Duchess of Malfi - simply to see a warped formula that works exceptionally well. The play is slightly marred by Webster's wooden stage craft, but thankfully the originality of the story compensates for some stilted dialogue and awkward devices. For its time, Malfi was a sensational play - truly gruesome and bloody, with its special effects making it a Jacobean Hollywood Blockbuster. The characters are perhaps the greatest success of this play. Webster's Ferdinand is vile, his Duchess is fiesty, yet at times she commits acts that condemn her to not being dubbed a "heroine", such as her fake pilgrimage. Antonio, the principle male "good guy" is so outrageously stupid that one has to hate him for being wetter than a Thomas Hardy novel. In fact, the microcosm of the play is almost without virtue, save for Pescara (an interesting play on 'piscari' - the Latin for fish, the Christian symbol). Finally, the play pivots on the role of Bosola, who is neither anti-hero, villain, hero or anything else for that matter. He is a fabulous and intelligent malcontent: the Macciavel personified. Ultimately, if you are bored of reading the same formula within a tragedy, pick up the Duchess of Malfi and blow off the dust from the front cover. It is an often overlooked play, though its author has written a piece of theatre that is so strange and so difficult to perform that it is still largely snubbed by theatre companies today. By destroying the conventions of the tragedy to the extent that the end result arguably isn't a tragic play at all, Webster has written a play that is as important to the development of the modern tragedy as those which rigidly stick to the formulae.
Rating:
Summary: A violent psychosexual play
Review: John Webster's play "The Duchess of Malfi" is a violent play that presents a dark, disturbing portrait of the human condition. According to the introductory note in the Dover edition, the play was first presented in 1613 or 1614. The title character is a widow with two brothers: Ferdinand and the Cardinal. In the play's opening act, the brothers try to persuade their sister not to seek a new husband. Her resistance to their wishes sets in motion a chain of secrecy, plotting, and violence. The relationship between Ferdinand and the Duchess is probably one of the most unsettling brother-sister relationships in literature. The play is full of both onstage killings and great lines. The title character is one of stage history's intriguing female characters; she is a woman whose desires lead her to defy familial pressure. Another fascinating and complex character is Bosola, who early in the play is enlisted to act as a spy. Overall, a compelling and well-written tragedy.
Rating:
Summary: A violent psychosexual play
Review: John Webster's play "The Duchess of Malfi" is a violent play that presents a dark, disturbing portrait of the human condition. According to the introductory note in the Dover edition, the play was first presented in 1613 or 1614. The title character is a widow with two brothers: Ferdinand and the Cardinal. In the play's opening act, the brothers try to persuade their sister not to seek a new husband. Her resistance to their wishes sets in motion a chain of secrecy, plotting, and violence. The relationship between Ferdinand and the Duchess is probably one of the most unsettling brother-sister relationships in literature. The play is full of both onstage killings and great lines. The title character is one of stage history's intriguing female characters; she is a woman whose desires lead her to defy familial pressure. Another fascinating and complex character is Bosola, who early in the play is enlisted to act as a spy. Overall, a compelling and well-written tragedy.
Rating:
Summary: A superb play
Review: Of the "popular" editions of this play that by John Russell Brown (Revels Student Editions) and Elizabeth Brennan (New Mermaids) are both useful, though it must be said that no edition as yet does adequate justice to Webster's compexity - notably his presentation of Ferdinand. The play is both a tour de force and profoundly searching. It is perhaps the first major feminist play in England, with the Duchess presented as an outstandingly noble even if fallible character, the victim of her two evil "partriarchal" brothers. Of these, her twin brother Ferdinand is among the most intelligently conceived characters to appear on the Jacobean stage. Unknowingly (i.e. in his "unconscious") he is incestuously in love with his sister. Unable to cope with this "taboo" feeling, he tries to "repress" it unsuccessfully, and finally his ... "libido" comes to express itself in a violent wish to destroy her if he cannot ... own her, and he ends up believing himself to be a wolf, attempting to dig up her grave after he has had her killed. Obviously, then, this is a very Freudian work - anticipating Freud's insights brilliantly by some four centuries, and without lapsing into Freud's extravagantly improbable claims about such matters as the Oedipus complex. It is the working of the unconcious, as a reservoir of what we do not understand and cannot control, which is quite central in this play, and Ferdinand's ... confusion is potently contrasted with his sister's openminded, acknowledged and generous ... health. An outstanding play, recommended as among the best of its time (comparable in quality and interest to e.g. *Othello* or *The Changeling*). - Joost Daalder, Professor of English, Flinders University, South Australia
Rating:
Summary: Necessary background for Agatha Christie & Dorothy L. Sayers
Review: This is a review of the New Mermaids edition of The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster. Elisabeth M. Brennan edits this edition (ISBN: 0393900665.) I mention this incase it is cross-posted under some other editor's edition. I bought this after reading snippets of it in other books. I do not recall having to learn this in school. Only now do I intend to read "The White Devil" in anticipation of it being encountered in other works. Well what do you know? This animal is based on a true story of the Duchess of Amalfi. Evidentially there were several books written on this and he picked one for the outline of the play. This edition is almost as good as taking a class in its self. The introduction gives you a back ground and the basic story that the play was based on. You get some information on John Webster and some of his other plays. There is even a further Reading List. There are even notes on the text and how to read the notes for the different versions of the play its self. By the time you get to the play you are well prepared to read it. The play its self has stanzas, line numbers and notes to help you through the difficulty of understanding what the words mean in context. It is almost like reading a bible. You soon pickup speed and then actually get intrigued in the writing and story. Now I desperately want some local theater to present "The duchess of Malfi"
Rating:
Summary: Necessary background for Agatha Christie & Dorothy L. Sayers
Review: This is a review of the New Mermaids edition of The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster. Elisabeth M. Brennan edits this edition (ISBN: 0393900665.) I mention this incase it is cross-posted under some other editor's edition. I bought this after reading snippets of it in other books. I do not recall having to learn this in school. Only now do I intend to read "The White Devil" in anticipation of it being encountered in other works. Well what do you know? This animal is based on a true story of the Duchess of Amalfi. Evidentially there were several books written on this and he picked one for the outline of the play. This edition is almost as good as taking a class in its self. The introduction gives you a back ground and the basic story that the play was based on. You get some information on John Webster and some of his other plays. There is even a further Reading List. There are even notes on the text and how to read the notes for the different versions of the play its self. By the time you get to the play you are well prepared to read it. The play its self has stanzas, line numbers and notes to help you through the difficulty of understanding what the words mean in context. It is almost like reading a bible. You soon pickup speed and then actually get intrigued in the writing and story. Now I desperately want some local theater to present "The duchess of Malfi"
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