-
Seasonal Offer:
This title is part of our Seasonal Offers promotion.
| ||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in The Duchess of Malfi and Other Plays (Oxford World's Classics) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Special Offers and Product Promotions
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
This volume offers John Webster's two great Jacobean tragedies, The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, together with his brilliant tragicomedy, The Devil's Law-Case, and the comedy written with William Rowley, A Cure for a Cuckold. Webster is a radically and creatively experimental dramatist. His tragedies deploy shifting dramatic perspectives which counteract and challenge conventional moral judgements, while the predominantly gentler tone of his comedies and tragicomedies responds inventively to contemporary changes in dramatic taste and fashion. All four plays display the provocative intelligence of a profoundly original playwright. Under the General Editorship of Michael Cordner of the University of York, the texts of the plays have been newly edited and are presented with modernized spelling and punctuation. In addition, there is detailed annotation, a glossary, and a critical introduction which traces Webster's artistic development, defends him against charges of over-indulgence in violence, and explores his sophisticated staging and scenic forms.
About the Author
René Weis is Senior Lecturer in English at University College, London.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The two tragedies in this collection (which also contains "The Devil's Law Case") are Webster at his finest, and "The Duchess of Malfi" stands as an unquestionable classic.
The language is almost fetid in its power, dank with atmosphere and bestial allusions and it tells a story of the Duchess whose two brothers choose to destroy her rather than allow her to remarry. The play ends in madness, death and mistaken murders, amidst a whelter of confusion, regret and betrayal. Redemption seems a far more remote prospect in Webster's tragedies than it does in Shakespeare's, and these tragedies are more muscular, dirtier and bestial than Shakespeare's work. Definitely needs to be read by anyone who has an interest in drama and literature, and those who like a corking good story.
The language is almost fetid in its power, dank with atmosphere and bestial allusions and it tells a story of the Duchess whose two brothers choose to destroy her rather than allow her to remarry. The play ends in madness, death and mistaken murders, amidst a whelter of confusion, regret and betrayal. Redemption seems a far more remote prospect in Webster's tragedies than it does in Shakespeare's, and these tragedies are more muscular, dirtier and bestial than Shakespeare's work. Definitely needs to be read by anyone who has an interest in drama and literature, and those who like a corking good story.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Malfi is Webster's masterpiece, a dark tragedy set in a world that is brooding, bloody and corrupt. None of the characters come off well: not the incestuous and mad Ferdinand who imagines himself a werewolf; the adulterous Cardinal; the vacillating Antonio; or even the Duchess herself who woos and marries a courtier who serves her.
Despite Webster's attempt to offer hope and redemption at the end, this is a play that is soaked in blood. The light shines through it in Webster's jewel-dark poetry and the unrelenting pace, and this is fitting companion piece to the best of Marlowe and Shakespeare.
Despite Webster's attempt to offer hope and redemption at the end, this is a play that is soaked in blood. The light shines through it in Webster's jewel-dark poetry and the unrelenting pace, and this is fitting companion piece to the best of Marlowe and Shakespeare.
Format:Paperback
... on the page of this edition. Webster's The Duchess of Malfi is the best known of the plays here and is valued for its characters, imagery, themes, intense atmosphere and memorable scenes. The Duchess is a young widow whose brothers oppose a second marriage: Ferdinand, her twin, is so violent in his language that we suspect an incestuous interest, only partially acknowledged: "Till I know who leaps my sister, I'll not stir." The Duchess is introduced in a description by Antonio who praises her beauty, her virtue and her grace: "She stains [eclipses] time past: lights the time to come" but she has a strong will which we see in the memorable scenes where she woos and marries him. The greatest challenge to an actor is, perhaps, the interpretation of the role of Bosola, the wordly spy who connives in the mental torture of the Duchess and yet comes to pity her, finally making the existentialist decision to be himself: "I'll be mine own example." The scenes of this cruelty to the Duchess, her courage and endurance, and of her death and that of Cariola are enthralling on the stage but raise a problem: what is left for Act V and how can a director keep the drama alive? Other difficulties for a modern audiences are the distancing devices and set pieces which can seem formal and unnatural. There are few poetically sustained speeches but there are outstanding lines: " Cover her face. Mine eyes dazzle: she died young" which stay in the mind as do the claustrophobic atmosphere and main themes of corruption, love, public and private life and the harshness of man to woman.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Was this review helpful?
Let us know
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
