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Duchess of Malfi (New Mermaids)
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| List Price: | £5.99 |
| Price: | £3.27 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Delivery on orders over £15. Details |
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Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #3545 in Books
- Published on: 2003-08-29
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Paperback
- 184 pages
Editorial Reviews
Synopsis
One of the most haunting tragedies written in the Jacobean period, TheDuchess of Malfi (1614) adapts the true story of a noble Italian widowwho secretly marries her steward and has children with him. Her twobrothers, enraged by this act of female self-determination, begin tospy on the happy family, entrap them and subject their sister tofiendish psychological torture before they have her strangled. Unlikehis sources, Webster does not condemn the Duchess for lasciviousness,nor does he allow her brothers to live. As the introduction to thisedition shows, the play is replete with reverberations of earliertragedies, most prominently Hamlet and Othello, and has few equals as askilful and stirring rendition of Jacobean dramatic fashions.
Customer Reviews
Webster the Wonderful.
Webster is scarcely known outside university departments and some enlightened secondary schools who have used him on A-level syllabuses. This is a pity...and a scandal. It means that he is vastly undervalued, if rated at all. His two main plays are great works of art and he is one of the very finest playwrights in existence. Read, and re-read.
Clear and concise - good for students.
Clear layout with interesting insights from previous performances. It did feel a little as though it was being sponsored by one or two of them however, they were referenced so frequently.
Also, there was a distinct lack of information on the play's original performance, which most copies do have.
Learn to love tragedies!!!!
As a teenager English Literature is one of the most mind-numbing subjects to study - or so I thought until I was introduced to this book. Despite being written in a completely different period, each character would fit in perfectly with the world today, and has far more twists than any soap-opera or sit-com.
Perfect for all those wonderful people who find murder, incest, power seeking, lust, mad men singing and blatant insults even mildly amusing.
Get used to the Jacobean speech, and this is one hell of a play. Read this one, and then find yourself some more Webster!!!!!
