SOURCE "The Duchess of Malfi," in Webster and Ford, Macmillan Press, Ltd., 1995, pp. 52-71.

In the following excerpt, Wymer, in the light of modern adaptations of The Duchess of Malfi, analyzes Webster's characterizations, psychology of the dramatic situations, and treatment of suffering and death within the play.

Webster's second tragedy repeats and reworks many of the situations, themes, characters, images and even individual lines from The White Devil. Once more we find ourselves in a sixteenth-century Italian court where the ruthlessness of great men and the corrupt authority of the Catholic church—a linkage vividly dramatised by the Cardinal's exchange of his ecclesiastical robes for armour—combine to crush any possibilities of healthy or honest existence. Once more there is the close scrutiny of how men and women meet their deaths, as if only in their final extremity can their value be truly known. The similarities between the...