Questions for Short, Response Paper on John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi

 

English 324   Renaissance British Literature  University of Portland  Fall 2005   Dr. Herman Asarnow

 

(Write about one. Review you’re the instructions for the Short, Response Papers before you begin writing!)

 

 

 

1.       1.  "Webster's The Duchess of Malfi depicts a world of social and moral uncertainty, a time and place of no balance between Order and Chaos.  The tragedy of the play is corporate--of society as a whole--and not primarily the Duchess's."  Agree or disagree, and deploy evidence in support of your assertion.

 

2.      2.  "The Duchess of Malfi is a play about the Renaissance 'division' between 'custom'  and nature,' that is, between what is socially expected of a person (and woman) in her public role, and what is personal necessity in her private life as a woman. "  Dig into the specifics of the play and present evidence from it supporting and/or refuting this statement.

 

3.      3.  The Duchess of Malfi is loaded with animal imagery and disease imagery.  Take a good look at who uses it, and when.  Then explain what ideas Webster seems to be expressing through its use by certain characters.

 

4.      The character Daniel de Bosola is often described as one kind or another of a stock Renaissance  character--the malcontent, the machiavel, or the melancholic.  If he interests you, use evidence from the play to argue that he is, indeed, one (or more) of these stock "types."  (Give examples and comparisons to other characters in other plays we’ve read to support your claim(s)!)  Or, argue that de Bosola is a round character, with plenty of human complexity, and not a stock character.  Again, deploy evidence from the play to support your assertions. 

 

 

                                       The Doctor, on The Duke, Act V, scene 2:

 

In those that are possess'd with't there o'erflows  
Such melancholy humour, they imagine
Themselves to be transformed into wolves;
Steal forth to church-yards in the dead of night,

And dig dead bodies up: as two nights since
One met the duke 'bout midnight in a lane
Behind St. Mark's Church, with the leg of a man   
Upon his shoulder, and he howl'd fearfully;
Said he was a wolf, only the difference      
Was, a wolf's skin was hairy on the outside,
His on the inside;