One of the most haunting tragedies written in the Jacobean period, The Duchess of Malfi (1614) adapts the true story of a noble Italian widow who secretly marries her steward and has children with him. Her two brothers, enraged by this act of female self-determination, begin to spy on the happy family, entrap them and subject their sister to fiendish psychological torture before they have her strangled. Unlike his sources, Webster does not condemn the Duchess for lasciviousness, nor does he allow her brothers to live. As the introduction to this edition shows, the play is replete with reverberations of earlier tragedies, most prominently Hamlet and Othello, and has few equals as a skilful and stirring rendition of Jacobean dramatic fashions.
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Book Description:
A completely new introduction brings this best-selling edition up-to-date for students and teachers
About the Author:
Brian Gibbons is a distinguished scholar and editor of Shakespeare and other early modern dramatists. He is the author of many critical studies and a General Editor of the New Mermaids and the New Cambridge Shakespeare series.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherMethuen Drama
- Publication date2003
- ISBN 10 0713667915
- ISBN 13 9780713667912
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages192
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