முதுகலை ஆங்கில இலக்கியம் பாடத்திட்டம் - "தி டச்சஸ் ஆப் மல்பி"

John Webster:
Born
1580London England
Died
1634 (aged 53–54)
Spouse
Sara Peniall
Information
Magnum opus
The White DevilThe Duchess of Malfi
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John Webster (c.1580 – c.1634) was an English Jacobean dramatist best known for his tragedies The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, often regarded as masterpieces of the early 17th-century English stage.[1] He was a contemporary of William Shakespeare.
The Duchess of Malfi:

The Duchess of Malfi is a macabre, tragic play written by the English dramatist John Webster in 1612–13.[1] It was first performed privately at the Blackfriars Theatre, then before a more general audience at The Globe, in 1613-14.[2] Published for the first time in 1623, the play is loosely based on true events that occurred between about 1508 and 1513, recounted in William Painter's The Palace of Pleasure (1567). The Duchess was Giovanna d'Aragona, whose father, Arrigo d'Aragona, Marquis of Gerace, was an illegitimate son of Ferdinand I of Naples. Her husbands were Alfonso Piccolomini, Duke of Amalfi, and (as in the play) Antonio Bologna.
The play begins as a love story, with a Duchess who marries beneath her class, and ends as a nightmarish tragedy as her two brothers exact their revenge, destroying themselves in the process.
The play is sometimes ridiculed by modern critics for the excessive violence and horror in its later scenes.[3] Nevertheless, the complexity of some of its characters, particularly Bosola and the Duchess, and Webster's poetic language, give it a continuing interest, and it is still performed in the 21st century.
Contents
1 Characters
2 Main themes
3 Plot
4 Quotations
5 The 1623 quarto
Characters:
Antonio Bologna. The Duchess's steward, and later her husband, recently returned from France, and full of scorn for the Italian courtiers whom he sees as more corrupt than the French. His social status, lower than that of the Duchess's aristocratic family, hinders his relationship with her.
Delio. A courtier, who tries to woo Julia. A friend of Antonio. (He is based on a historical character of the same name.)
Daniel de Bosola. A former servant of the Cardinal, now returned from imprisonment in the galleys. Sent by Ferdinand to spy on the Duchess. Later, on Ferdinand's command, he orders her execution, and still later, he seeks to avenge her. Being the malcontent of the play, he tends to view things cynically, and makes numerous critical comments on the nature of Renaissance society. He is frequently characterized by his melancholy. (He is based on the historical Daniele de Bozolo, about whom less is known.)
The Cardinal. Brother of the Duchess. A cool, rational, Machiavellian churchman who apparently gained his power through bribery and corruption. (Historically, his name was Luigi or Lodovico.)
Ferdinand. The Duke of Calabria, and twin brother of the Duchess. Unlike his rational brother the Cardinal, Ferdinand is given to fits of rage and violent outbursts. He also appears to have an incestuous desire for his twin sister. (In reality, his name was Carlo, and he was Marquis of Gerace.)
Castruchio. An old lord. His name is a play on the word "castrated", suggesting impotence. He belongs to the conventional character type of the elderly man with a young, unfaithful wife (Julia).
Roderigo. A courtier.
Grisolan. A courtier.
Silvio. A courtier.
Pescara. A marquis.
The Duchess. The chief tragic protagonist, and a young widow. She has three children in the play, two sons and a daughter, by Antonio. There is an inconsistency about earlier children by her deceased husband in the play, put down to a careless mistake by Webster himself.
Cariola. Duchess's waiting-woman. Dies tragically by strangling shortly after the Duchess and the youngest children. Her name is a play on the Italian carriolo meaning "trundle-bed", where personal servants would have slept.
Julia. Castruchio's wife, and the Cardinal's mistress. She dies at the Cardinal's hands from a poisoned Bible.
Malateste. A hanger-on at the Cardinal's court. The name means 'headache'. Referred to as a "mere stick of sugar candy" by the Duchess, he is yet another interchangeable courtier designed to convey the sycophantic and superficial nature of the court of Malfi.
Doctor. Sent for to diagnose and remedy Ferdinand's madness and his supposed "lycanthropia".
Main themes:
The main themes of the play are: misuse of power, revenge, the status of women and the consequences which arise when they attempt to assert their authority in a patriarchal society, the consequences of unequal marriage, cruelty, corruption and the duties of a ruler.
Plot:
The play is set in the court of Malfi (Amalfi), Italy over the period 1504 to 1510. The recently widowed Duchess falls in love with Antonio, a lowly steward, but her brothers, not wishing her to share their inheritance, forbid her from remarrying. However, she secretly marries Antonio and bears him several children.
The Duchess' lunatic and incestuously obsessed brother Ferdinand threatens and disowns her. In an attempt to escape, the Duchess and Antonio concoct a story that Antonio has swindled her out of her fortune and has to flee into exile. She takes Bosola into her confidence, not knowing that he is Ferdinand's spy, and arranges that he will deliver her jewellery to Antonio at his hiding-place in Ancona. She will join them later, whilst pretending to make a pilgrimage to a town nearby. The Cardinal hears of the plan, instructs Bosola to banish the two lovers, and sends soldiers to capture them. Antonio escapes with their eldest son, but the Duchess, her maid and her two younger children are returned to Malfi and, under instructions from Ferdinand, die at the hands of executioners under Bosola's command. This experience, combined with a long-standing sense of injustice and his own feeling of a lack of identity, turns Bosola against the Cardinal and his brother, deciding to take up the cause of "Revenge for the Duchess of Malfi" (V.2).
The Cardinal confesses to his mistress Julia his part in the killing of the Duchess, and then murders her to silence her, using a poisoned Bible. Next, Bosola overhears the Cardinal plotting to kill him (though he accepts what he sees as punishment for his actions), and so visits the darkened chapel to kill the Cardinal at his prayers. Instead, he mistakenly kills Antonio, who has just returned to Malfi to attempt a reconciliation with the Cardinal. Bosola stabs the Cardinal, who dies. In the brawl that follows, Ferdinand and Bosola stab each other to death.
Antonio's elder son by the Duchess appears in the final scene, and takes his place as the heir to the Malfi fortune, despite his father's explicit wish that his son "fly the court of princes", a corrupt and increasingly deadly environment.
Quotations:
"We are merely the stars' tennis balls, struck and bandied
Which way please them."
-- Bosola, to Antonio after accidentally stabbing him. Act 5, Sc.4
"A Spanish fig for your impudence"
-- Bosola, to Antonio after being accused of poisoning the Duchess. Act 2, Sc.3
"Do you not weep?
Other sins only speak; murder shrieks out.
The element of water moistens the earth,
But blood flies upwards and bedews the heavens."
-- Bosola, to Ferdinand upon gazing on the dead body of the Duchess. Act 4, Sc. 2
"Cover her face. Mine eyes dazzle. She died young."
-- Ferdinand, after looking at the dead body of his sister the Duchess. Act 4, Sc.2
"She and I were twins;
And should I die this instant, I had liv'd
Her time to a minute."
-- Ferdinand, after looking at the dead body of his sister the Duchess. Act 4, Sc.2
"It seems she was born first:
You have bloodily approv'd the ancient truth,
That kindred commonly do worse agree
Than remote strangers."
-- Bosola, in response to Ferdinand. Act 4, Sc. 2
"Whether we fall by ambition, blood or lust,
Like diamonds we are cut with our own dust."
-- Ferdinand's dying words. Act 5, Sc.5
"Diamonds are of most value
They say, that have pass'd through most jewellers
hands"
-- The Duchess, talking about remarrying. Act 1, Sc. 2, l.262-263
"Whores, by that rule, are precious."
-- Ferdinand, in response to the above quote, l.264
The 1623 quarto:
The first printed edition contains a combined cast list for two productions of The Duchess of Malfi by the King's Men, c. 1614 and c. 1621, providing valuable information about the structure and evolution of the key dramatic company of the era. The printer was a Nicholas Okes, and the publisher John Waterson. Webster dedicated the play to George Harding, 8th Baron Berkeley, a noted patron of literature in his era. The phrasing of Webster's dedication indicates that the dramatist was soliciting the Baron's patronage, rather than acknowledging support already given; it is unknown to what degree that solicitation was successful.
வ்வ்வ்.என்.விக்கிபீடியா.ஒர்/விக்கி/தி டுசெச்ஸ் ஒப் மல்பி