SOURCE: Mulryne, J. R. “The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi.” In Jacobean Theatre, edited by John Russell Brown, pp. 201-25. London: Edward Arnold, 1960.

In the essay below, Mulryne maintains that Webster mockingly repudiates the revenge tragedy form in The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, asserting that in these plays Webster intentionally creates a world of “moral and emotional anarchy.”

After Shakespeare's plays, Webster's tragedies, The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, are more often produced today than the work of any other Jacobean dramatist. In some ways this continued popularity is difficult to explain, for, while The Duchess of Malfi might possibly command unthinking and even sentimental esteem, The White Devil challenges and disturbs far more than it flatters. We can adjust ourselves readily enough to so narrow and intense a loathing as emerges from Tourneur's plays for example, because we can stand...