Duchess of Malfi / Edition 1

by John Webster

Overview

The Duchess of Malfi is a macabre, tragic play written by the
English dramatist John Webster in 1612-13. It was first performed privately at the Blackfriars Theatre, then later to a larger audience at The Globe, in 1613-14.

Published in 1623, the play is loosely based on events that occurred between about 1508 and 1513. The Duchess was

Giovanna d'Aragona, Duchess of Amalfi (d. 1511), whose father,
Enrico d'Aragona, Marquis of Gerace, was an illegitimate son of
Ferdinand I of Naples. As in the play, she secretly married
Antonio Beccadelli di Bologna after the death of her first husband
Alfonso I Piccolomini, Duke of Amalfi.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	2900882951019
Publisher:	Harlan Davidson, Inc.
Publication date:	01/28/1953
Series:	Crofts Classics Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	108
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 1.25(h) x 9.00(d)

About the Author

Michael Neill is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Auckland and Professor of Early Modern Literature at the University of Kent. He is the author of Issues of Death: Mortality and Identity in English Renaissance Tragedy and Putting History to the Question. His editions include Antony and Cleopatra and Othello for the Oxford Shakespeare, Middleton’s The Changeling for New Mermaids, and Massinger’s The Renegado for Arden Early Modern Drama.

Table of Contents

Using this guide 2

Synopsis 4

Scene summaries and commentaries 6

Themes 35

Characters 41

Form, structure and language 54

Contexts 62

Working with the text 73

Meeting the Assessment Objectives 74

Top ten quotations 90

Taking it further 93