The Duchess of Malfi

His tragic masterpiece is The Duchess of Malfi. The subject of the play connects Webster with popular humanism; the main theme is the revolt of the Duchess against established conventions, against the doctrine of social inequality. The story is based on a novella by Bandello. The Duchess, a young widow, falls in love with Antonio, the steward of her household, and marries him in secret. Her ‘proud Aragonian’ brothers, the Cardinal and Ferdinand, Duke of Calabria, set the melancholy malcontent Bosola to spy upon the lovers. When her secret is found out, the brothers stung to the quick in their aristocratic pride and their greed for her possessions, decide on her. The Duchess is subjected to a series of tortures constantly rising in horror; she is finally strangled (megfojtották) by Bosola and his executioners.

Punishment overtakes all the participants in the crime, and the play ends in bloodshed death. Elizabethan drama, as has been stressed by M. G. Bradbrook, usually works with rigid, static characters, but the Duchess is one of the great examples of a developing character, outside Shakespeare. At first she is an instinctive creature who follows the dictates of her heart; the scene of her wooing to Antonio, in the latter part of I. 1. is outstanding for its emotional balance and serene beauty. It is only gradually, in the fire of terrible suffering, that she grows into tragic character. The horrors reach their climax in Act IV; Elizabethan drama, as has been stressed by M. G. Bradbrook, usually works with rigid, static characters, but the Duchess is one of the great examples of a developing character, outside Shakespeare. At first she is an instinctive creature who follows the dictates of her heart; the scene of her wooing to Antonio, in the latter part of I. 1. is outstanding for its emotional balance and serene beauty. It is only gradually, in the fire of terrible suffering, that she grows into tragic character. The horrors reach their climax in Act IV;