The Duchess of Malfi ao5

Question 1

The nature of female rule is unnatural

Answer 1

John Knox 1558

Question 2

The Duchess of Malfi is a sorry play

Answer 2

Samuel Pepys 1666

Question 3

(about duchess) She has lived among horrors till she is become native and endowed into that element

Answer 3

Charles Lamb 1808

Question 4

(duchess in imprisonment) she speaks the dialect of despair; her tongue has a snatch of Tartarus and the souls in hell

Answer 4

William Hazlitt 1857

Question 5

Revenge, hatred, villainy, incest, and murder upon murder… and they handle these hours with little or no moral purpose, save that of exciting and amusing the audience

Answer 5

Kingsley 1890

Question 6

Complained that with bosola , ‘a fatal lack of clearness ruins everything’

Answer 6

Archer 1893

Question 7

(Julia is) designed a s a set-off to the duchess; as an instance of unholy love in contrast to the chaste love of the Duchess

Answer 7

Poel 1893

Question 8

Repulsive themes and characters

Answer 8

Lee 1899

Question 9

Webster could handle a scene but could not compass a plot

Answer 9

Rylands 1945

Question 10

Despite Bosola’s central role in the play of “monumental complexities’, critics have ‘almost without exception, avoided the task of attempting a complex examination of the character’

Answer 10

Thayer 1957

Question 11

If Ferdinand silences bawdy laughter and yet speaks bawdily himself, his sexual awareness will seem the more private and dangerous to the audience

Answer 11

John Russell Brown 1960

Question 12

The Duchess, not her brother, stands for ordinary humanity, love and the continuity of life through children

Answer 12

Irving Ribner 1961

Question 13

The play is filled with “unplotted undulations”

Answer 13

Beckerman 1962

Question 14

It is Ferdinand who is so unsure of himself

Answer 14

Calderwood 1962

Question 15

the brothers picture of the Duchess is a projection of the evil in their own minds

Answer 15

Brennan 1963

Question 16

The Cardinal, thinking of family honour as consisting in noble blood

Answer 16

Brennan 1963

Question 17

The structure of the play is yet to be vindicated

Answer 17

Brown 1964

Question 18

(duchess’s marriage to Antonio) is ‘wilful and irresponsible’.

Answer 18

Rabkin 1968

Question 19

The play, which is one of the most complex and subtle works in the entire range of English drama

Answer 19

Louis D. Giannetti 1968

Question 20

The only character who is not fixed at either extreme is Bosola

Answer 20

Louis D. Giannetti 1969

Question 21

The Duchess is ‘good’ in the obvious tenderness and sincerity of her love for Antonio and in her dying faith in a better world, ‘bad’ in ignoring the wishes and welfare of her family and in making religion a ‘cloak’ to hide her worldly self-indulgence

Answer 21

Whitman 1975

Question 22

Critics have found little to like or admire in Antonio

Answer 22

Belton 1976

Question 23

lAntonio represents, perhaps better than anyone else in the play, the Christian Stoic

Answer 23

Belton 1976

Question 24

the duchess could be faulted for remarrying, a violation of social norms for widows which was exacerbated by the secrecy of the match and there lower rank of her husband

Answer 24

Mikesell 1983

Question 25

Both in the bedchamber confrontation and in their last interchange, Ferdinand persists in seeing only lechery in his sister's actions

Answer 25

Mikesell 1983

Question 26

The Duchess seeks private happiness at the expense of the public stability. As a ruler she can no more be lauded for the example she sets than her brothers

Answer 26

Lee Bliss 1983

Question 27

The Cardinal's cool, unemotional detachment is more terrifying than Ferdinand's impassioned raving

Answer 27

Lee Bliss 1983

Question 28

(about bosola) ' a stranger in his own land'

Answer 28

Frank Whigham 1985

Question 29

(cariola) 'seems happily to derive almost the whole of her identity from her relational dedication and so to exhibit for purposes of contrast one familiar form of female self-gift

Answer 29

Frank Whigham 1985

Question 30

The Duchess abandons her 'body politic' for those of her 'body natural' and for this she has to die

Answer 30

Jankowaski 1990

Question 31

an amoral tale

Answer 31

Derek Pearsall 1992

Question 32

Other Italian places were chosen by the playwrights to both distance the events of their plays from local English problems and to reproduce the stereotyped idea of Italy as the land of corrupt power and lost glory

Answer 32

Mullini 1993

Question 33

Italian plays increasingly came to be read as metaphors of England

Answer 33

Hunter 1997

Question 34

'is a cautionary tale, which shows what can happen when women marry without proper consent'

Answer 34

Nanci Lamb Raider 2005

Question 35

Despite her political sovereignty, her brothers assume a patriarchal control over her body and sexuality, an assumption which extends over her political state

Answer 35

Kate Aughterton 2013

Question 36

The Duchess and Cariola comforting each other in prison, showing female solidarity in the face of male tyranny

Answer 36

Andrews 2018 production RSC of The Duchess of Malfi

Question 37

Ferdinand’s descent into madness, culminating in his lycanthropy, represents the externalisation of the moral decay that has been festering within him throughout the play. His transformation into a beast reflects the dehumanising effects of power and unchecked rage.

Answer 37

Dympna Callaghan (Women and Gender in Renaissance Tragedy, 1989)

Question 38

Bosola’s trajectory in the play exemplifies the moral disintegration caused by his role as the agent of corrupt power. Yet, his eventual remorse and turn toward vengeance suggest a complex moral awakening, albeit one that arrives too late to redeem him fully.’

Answer 38

Frank Whigham 1996

Question 39

‘The Duchess undergoes a transformation from a figure of political and personal defiance to one of spiritual transcendence. Her death marks not a defeat, but a triumph over the corruption that surrounds her, as she assumes the role of a martyr.’

Answer 39

Christina Luckyj 1989

Question 40

‘The court of Malfi becomes a microcosm of decay, where moral corruption manifests itself in physical and psychological transformations, as seen in Ferdinand’s madness and Bosola’s despair.’

Answer 40

Irving Ribner 1957

Question 41

‘The Duchess’s transformation through her clandestine marriage and motherhood challenges traditional gender roles, asserting her agency in a way that ultimately destabilises the patriarchal structure and leads to its violent backlash.’

Answer 41

Lisa Hopkins 2009

Question 42

Ferdinand’s lycanthropy serves as a grotesque metaphor for his repressed guilt and incestuous desires. His transformation into a beast illustrates the ultimate breakdown of his identity and humanity.’

Answer 42

R.S. White 1993

Question 43

‘Bosola is a tool of the play's moral disintegration, yet he himself undergoes a transformation from cynical opportunism to tragic self-awareness, embodying the complex duality of guilt and redemption.’

Answer 43

T.S Elliot 1932