Henningfeld is a professor of English literature and composition who has written widely for educational and academic publications. In this essay, Henningfeld uses new historical and feminist criticism to demonstrate the ways that The White Devil reflects and reinforces Elizabethan and Jacobean ideas about women.

In recent years, new historical and feminist critics have provided some of the most compelling readings of The White Devil by placing the play within the contexts of the culture from which it comes. New historicists, in particular, believe that literary works do not exist in a vacuum, but are rather artifacts of a given culture. That is, a play such as The White Devil does not exist apart from the other forms of discourse circulating in the culture that produces it. These forms of discourse might include pamphlets, art work, legal texts, religious teachings, and medical knowledge. These texts both reflect...