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Tuesday, May 22, 2018

And Suddenly There's Lycanthropy: John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi

I've made it through the first book on my summer reading challenge! So we're starting posts with John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi.

Webster's play was written and performed in the early 1610s. Believed to be based on true events, the story's manipulation of the tragic form has ensured it a place among the most important of early modern English plays.

Title page for John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi
The story follows the newly widowed Duchess of Malfi and her two brothers, Ferdinand and the Cardinal. After her brothers tell her not to remarry, the Duchess defies them, confessing her love for her steward, Antonio. The two marry in secret, an act known only to the Duchess' maid, Cariola. The brothers don't trust her, though, and so they hire a servant, Bosola, to spy on her for them. Time passes, and Bosola suspects the Duchess is pregnant. He comes up with a plan to feed her apricots, which make her ill, but doesn't prove his suspicion. It is only after Antonio drops the horoscope for the Duchess' new baby boy that he is proven right. He immediately tells the brothers, who are (not surprisingly) displeased - especially because they think the child is illegitimate. More time passes, and the Duchess and Antonio have two more children. At this point, her brothers are furious. Ferdinand makes a surprise visit, hides himself in his sister's room to find out the identity of her lover, and then jumps out and hands the Duchess a knife, advising her to kill herself. Bosola tricks the Duchess into revealing who her husband is and where he has gone, and immediately tells Ferdinand. The brothers banish the couple, removing their wedding rings. The Duchess and her two youngest return to Malfi, and Antonio and their eldest son flee to Milan. Ferdinand then convinces the Duchess that her husband and son are dead (they're not, though), and tries to drive her insane. When that fails, he orders her executed. Bosola, finally catching on to the fact that these brothers are not exactly the best of guys, tries to plead for the Duchess' life, but she, her maid, and her two children are all strangled. Determined that Antonio and his son should survive, Bosola promises to prevent their deaths. Meanwhile, Ferdinand has fallen victim to lycanthropy, and the Cardinal (who's been having some rather sleazy dealings on the side with a married woman) fears that he will reveal their joint decision to murder their sister. Learning that the Cardinal intends to murder Antonio, Bosola accepts the contract while planning to murder the brothers instead. While hiding in wait for the Cardinal, Bosola accidentally stabs Antonio, who had decided to come wreck his own form of vengeance on the Cardinal. Discovering his mistake, Bosola then manages to stab the Cardinal; this act wakes Ferdinand from his madness, and he and Bosola stab each other. Everyone dies (but not before Bosola tells the story of what happened), and Antonio's friend, Delio, promises to raise the couple's remaining child.

I was drawn to this play, not only because I hadn't read it, but because I've read very few early modern playwrights outside of Shakespeare. I did read John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore in undergrad, and actually really liked it. When I was preparing for the English GRE Subject Test this spring, The Duchess of Malfi appeared on several reading lists as a popular choice for questions. Clearly, I didn't manage to read this before the exam, but I'm glad that I did.

This play clearly follows in the vein of other Elizabethan and Jacobean tragedies. Everyone dies (like Hamlet or Titus Andronicus), there's a healthy implication of incestuous feelings (a la 'Tis Pity She's a Whore), and plenty of violence and bloodshed. But what makes it stand out for me is the sudden appearance of lycanthropy. In Act V, one of the characters asks the doctor attending Ferdinand what ails him, and his response is, "A very pestilent disease, my lord, / They call it lycanthropia" (5.2.5-6). But this doesn't necessarily mean what we associate with the term today; instead, Ferdinand merely believes himself to be a wolf, and was found one night holding part of a corpse. Of all the twists that I was expecting, a werewolf was not one of them.

Ultimately, I enjoyed reading this play. It has some really great quotes, interesting characters, and intense moments. There was just enough confusion for me, though, to make it difficult to follow.

Overall rating: 8.5/10 stars
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Sunday, May 13, 2018

Summer Reading Challenge 2018

I realize I've basically not posted anything since December two years ago.

Oops.

But as I roll around towards my MA thesis, I realize that I need a place to record some of the reading that I do outside of the required stuff. The stuff I read (or reread) for fun. The random books in my book haul when I go out to local bookstores. Books that I recommend, books that I don't, and books that have been recommended to me.

So my goal this summer is to keep track of what I'm reading, both here and on Goodreads. I'm also creating a small tracker in my bullet journal to make sure I follow my reading goals.

I'm going to plan out 20 books that I know I want to read this summer: five fiction, five non-fiction, five plays/poems, five rereads. I'm also going to list (separately) books that I want to reread in order to teach them in the spring.

With each book, I will post a blog review when I finish it. The rating system will be 1-10 (and some books can go to 11). I'll include a brief blurb about the book, what made me want to read it, and what my thoughts are. And then on to the next book.

So here's my 20 Summer Reads for 2018:


  1. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky
  2. A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway
  3. We, the Drowned - Carston Jensen
  4. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon
  5. Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
  6. Battle Cry of Freedom - James McPherson
  7. American Brutus - Michael W. Kauffman
  8. The Romanovs - Simon Sebag Montefiore
  9. Grant - Ron Chernow
  10. The Invention of Murder - Judith Flanders
  11. The Winter's Tale - William Shakespeare
  12. Five Revenge Tragedies: Kyd, Shakespeare, Marston, Chettle, Middleton
  13. The Duchess of Malfi - John Webster
  14. Pericles - William Shakespeare
  15. Five Plays - Christopher Marlowe
  16. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
  17. Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel
  18. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
  19. Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
  20. The Beautiful and Damned - F. Scott Fitzgerald
And other assorted books that I'll be rereading this summer may include:
  • Henry V - William Shakespeare
  • Confederates in the Attic - Tony Horowitz
  • The Killer Angels - Michael Shaara
  • The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
  • Code Name Verity - Elizabeth Wein
  • The Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy
Feel free to join along! There's not any set timetable for this, other than to be done by the end of the summer. Fingers crossed that I make it there!