The Duchess of Malfi Analysis

The main setting of the play is "at court." In The Duchess of Malfi, the court is presented as a hotbed of corruption and injustice because it's the place where the lord-subject relationship (and a...

The Duchess of Malfi is a play, so no narrator here! Instead, we get a front row seat to watch all of the characters and the unfolding action.

We won't play coy with you: it's a tragedy. As you probably figured out, what with it being called The Tragedy of the Duchess of Malfi, and all. If you want to dig a little deeper (what kind of tra...

Universal Truth of Webster Plays: life is harsh. We've talked about this over in the "Suffering" section of Themes, but the darkness of Webster's worldview is so pervasive and so consistent that it...

The Duchess of Malfi is rife with all kinds of doubles—from the mannequins of her family that Ferdinand makes to scare the Duchess to the two-facedness of Bosola to the fact that the Duchess and...

Nothing to fancy here: the full title is The Tragedy of the Duchess of Malfi (or Dvtchesse of Malfy, if you're looking at the original 1623 title page). Seems simple, right? And yet there's plenty...

We close our play with Delio, Antonio's BFF, coming on stage right after Bosola, the Cardinal, and Ferdinand have all killed each other. He's brought in the only surviving son of Antonio and the Du...

We're not going to mess with you: this play ain't easy to read. In addition to the old time-y language and weird historical idioms (you don't hear about many people trying to induce labor with the...

Older Brothers are a Real PainThe Duchess is an aristocratic widow secretly looking to remarry, but her brothers Ferdinand and the Cardinal are hell-bent on her staying single. To keep her in line,...

The Duchess is widowed but still young and looking to get herself a husband. She's got her eye on her steward Antonio, even though her brothers have made it crystal clear that they're dead-set agai...

The widowed Duchess of Malfi secretly marries her steward Antonio against the wishes of her two evil brothers, the Cardinal and Ferdinand. She and Antonio live happily for a while and pop out a few...

Harry Lloyd, whom you may know for playing Viserys Targaryen in Game of Thrones, performed the part of Ferdinand in a 2012 state production of The Duchess of Malfi. Apparently he's very good at pla...

For all of the talking that people do about the Duchess's sex life, there's not much in the way of actual sexiness in The Duchess of Malfi. Sure, you have the parts where Ferdinand's imagination ru...

Laban, Genesis 30.31 (1.1.291)Samson, Judges 15.4 (3.3.37)Deuteronomy 28.23 (4.2.25)Pliny (1.1.116)Michelangelo (3.3.51)The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, Sir Philip Sidney (4.1.5, 12, 81, 89) (4....