DOM Flashcards
life expectancy:
unconventional power of the duchess in a jacobean society marked by high mortality rates, infant mortality, disease and limited knowledge of medicine and hygiene. Death was an inescapable misery, especially with the decimation of the plague in 1603, often described as a sign of God’s displeasure. With life expectancy averaging 30 years old and only 50% of children living to see their 15th birthday, the Duchess’ ability to transcend death emphasises her immortality.
Bedlam and public executions:
Bedlam: a religious establishment notorious for the extortion of mental illness. The public would pay to view and ridicule patients with mental illnesses in cages, similarly to a zoo exhibition. Webster therefore catered to a Jacobean audience who enjoyed the mockery of mental illness and the physical violence trope of a tragedy.
King James selling titles:
Italy’s reputation for materialism draws parallels to the atmosphere of social climbing, sycophancy and ambition of James Ist’ court. James Ist was notorious for his profligacy, openly selling titles of honour like knighthoods and peerages to anyone with sufficient funds. Suspicions also arose regarding James’ sexuality as he had intimate relationships with several male courtiers. In particular, he introduced and awarded the title of ‘The Duke of Buckingham’ to George Villiers, who was thought to be one of the King’s favourites whom James lavished affection and patronage. James also sought to increase his income through taxation and succeeded in passing legislation in 1424 for tax to pay off the ransom. £26,000 was raised but James only gave £12,000 to England.
Elizabeth I:
- never married
- rumours of pregnancies
- said “ i may have the body of a weak and feeble women but I have the heart and stomach of a king”
Webster’s social ascent:
- prosperous middle class family- father was a carriage maker
- Webster went to study law in the Middle Temple
- he promoted a meritocracy- a society where people are promoted due to their virtue and achievements- instead of the fixed great chain of being
The Divine Right of Kings
a political doctrine in defence of monarchical absolutism, which asserted that kings derived their authority from God and could not therefore be held accountable for their actions by any earthly authority such as Parliment
The Great Chain of Being
An inflexible social system representing the emanation of exisence from the divine down to the material world. God occupying the highest position, followed by the King, nobles, gentry, peasants and within this: men, women, children and animals.
The Spanish Armada Invasion:
The Spanish Armada’s invasion in 1588 intensified perceptions of Catholicism as hostile and disloyal. The fleet of 130 ships, commanded by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, aimed to escort an army from Flanders to invade England, sparking fear of Spanish invasion.
Th Gunpowder plot:
The Gunpowder plot in 1605 was a failed assasination attempt against King James I by English Catholics, reinforced the view of catholicism as dangerous.
Aristotlean quote describing a tragedy:
revenge tragedy “that creates a cause and effect chain. Tragedy therefore arouses not only pity but fear, because the audience envision themselves in the cause and effect chain” Aristotle defines the plot as an “arrangement of incidents”
matyr book:
The fearless resolution hown by the Duchess at death corresponds to many Protestant martyr deaths recorded in John Foxe’s ‘Foxe’s Book of Martyrs’
Story of Lady Arabella Stuart:
Lady Arabella Stuart married William Seymour (The King’s cousin, but of lower status) in secret, but then imprisoned by James and later captured following an escape attempt. She died of malnutrition in the Tower of London; even women of nobility were ‘at risk’ for flouting and societal expectation.
The Duchess of Amalfi/ Giovanna story:
Based on the true story of a real ‘Duchess of Amalfi’ bron in 1478, who was widowed at the age of 19 in 1498. She then married her household steward, secretly had a child with him, fled her brothers when they discovered the truth and met an unknown end
A widow in Jacobean society:
The Duchess, being a widow, appears exempt from the obligations of the social hierarchy. A widow evades a husband’s authority, protection and coverture. Coverture was a legal doctrine in the English common law in which a married woman’s legal existence is merged with that of her husband. However, widows were liberated from these confinements. They owned a third of their late husband’s land and wealth. Widows were the only women in Jacobean society that were completely emancipated from these confinements and the complete domination of men as others were under the constraints set out by their immediate male relatives.
Humoural theory:
Greek philosophers- they believed that health (specifically the state of blood) was an equilibrium of the four humours:
melancholic: an excess of black bile- sad - Bosola
sanguine: excess of blood- full of life - The Duchess
phlegmatic: excess of phlegm- lack of emotion- The Cardinal
choleric: excess of yellow bile- anger - Ferdinand
The first ideas about lycanthropia:
The Damnable Life and Death of Stubbe Peeter, A Werewolf 1590. A sensationalist story of the life, trial and death of Peeter Stubbe became the foremost English language source for early modern ideas about werewolf behaviour.
Vives Conduct Book:
Juan Luis Vives insists that, when it comes to choosing a husband, maidens should keep quiet: ‘it becometh not a maide to talke, where hir father and mother be in communicacion about hir mariage’ , 1557
Blackfriars theatre:
Malfi was first performed by the King’s men at the Blackfriars Theatre in 1614, and first printed in 1623. More intimate and frequented by intellectuals- allowed for more sneaking and subtle lighting and changing for the audience. The play was a success, but what later spectators percieved as its lurid melodrama made it unpopular and seldom staged until the 19th Century.
revenge tragedies: malcontent character
The malcontent would be a familiar stereotype to a Jacobean audience, as a character who is mistreated and condemns their society, but is prepared to use any means to gain promotion in the same society. Other example - Hamlet.
revenge tragedy:
Revenge tragedy has routes in Greek Tragedy (Aristotle, Sophocle’s and Euripide’s tragedies) as well as Roman tragedies (seneca). As its name signifies, revenge tragedy is “a tragic play in which the tragedy results from the revenge that it is taken, for some wrong or wrongs, either by the person wronged himself or by someone else on his behalf. From Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy (1587), one of the earliest and most influential of this group of plays, revenge tragedies consistently present their audience with the spectacle of decadent courts and irresponsible, often sinister rulers. The inadequacies of the court create a logical space for a particular character archetype, the malcontent.
features of a senecan tragedy:
- Violence and Bloodshed
- revenge- aiming to achieve what the character defines as moral justice
- Isolation and Madness
- The Supernatural: Senecan tragedies frequently incorporate supernatural elements such as ghosts, prophecies, and divine intervention.
- Chorus: e.g. the fool- describes the truth and comments/ narrates- beacon of truth
- Fate and Determinism and stocism- we do not have control of our destiny so need to be stoic and accept our fate
features of an Aristolean tragedy:
agnorisis: recognition
peripeteia: turn of fortune / reversal of intentions
hamartia: fatal flaw
catharsis: purging of emotion
memento mori:
artistic or symbolic trope acting as a reminder of the inevitability of death. The concept has its roots in the philosophers of classical antiquity and Christianity, and appeared in funerary art and architecture from the medieval period onwards. Engagement with this often led people keeping skulls in their house as a reminder of mortality.
who was it first performed by:
the King’s Men, the theatre company to which Shakespeare belonged that performed all of his work. Richard Burbage, who first played famous characters such as Hamlet and King Lear, was the first to play Duke Ferdinand. Henry Condell, one of the editors and publishers of Shakespeare’s First Folio, first played the Cardinal.
fountain quote:
A prince’s court is like a common fountain, whence should flow pure silver drops in general, but if’t chance soem cursed example poison’t near the head, death and diseases through the whole land spread
bosola being called gall
Here comes Bosola, the only court-gall…. indeed he rails at those things he wants, would be as lecherous, covetous, or proud
blackbirds quote:
“blackbirds fatten best in hard weather”- Bosola
plum trees quote:
“he and his brother are like plum trees that grow crooked over standing pools: they are rich, and o’erladen with fruit, but none but crows, pies and catapillars feed on them”
bosola horseleech quote
Could I be one of their flatt’ring panders, I would hang on their ears like a horseleech till I were full, and then drop off
delio about bosola in prison and murderer
I knew this fellow seven years in the galleys for a notorious murder, and ‘twas thought The Cardinal suborned it
