The White Devil By Bracciano Analysis

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|The White Devil |
|JOHN WEBSTER |
|1612 |
|INTRODUCTION |
|AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY |
|PLOT SUMMARY |
|CHARACTERS
|
|THEMES |
|STYLE |
|HISTORICAL CONTEXT |
|CRITICAL OVERVIEW |
|CRITICISM |
|SOURCES |
|FURTHER READING |
|INTRODUCTION |
|John Webster's The White Devil is a story of passion and revenge. Written and first performed in 1612, The White |
|Devil is loosely based on a sensational event that happened in Italy some thirty years earlier: the murder of |
|historical Vittoria Accoramboni in Padua, on December 22, 1585. Webster apparently used one or more chronicles of |
|the event for his plot line, his settings, and his characters. According to John Russell Brown, however, Webster had|
|to be very careful as he retold this story. Webster's interest was not so much in the historical accuracy of his |
|retelling, but rather in the way this story could "[depict] the political and moral state of England in his own |
|day." |
|Although The White Devil is an example of the revenge tragedy genre, a popular Jacobean form of drama, Webster's |
|design and purpose in the play are not always clear. Many critics contend that this is a seriously flawed play, one |
|that has no central purpose other than to reveal the corruption at the heart of court life. There are other, more |
|recent critics, however, who argue that Webster's creation of a chaotic world lacking stability is a masterpiece. |
|Indeed, Webster's play is a commentary on the fragmentary, shifting nature of reality itself. As Brown writes, "The |
|white devil herself is at the centre of the story and its staging, but she is by no means a stabilizing factor; she |
|is always changing, and changing the audience's view of other persons." The White Devil continues to fascinate |
|audiences and readers alike; Manchester University Press published an easily accessible, updated paperback edition |
|of the play in 1996. |
|AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY |
|Although some details of John Webster's life are sketchy, some research reveals that Webster was born in London |
|sometime after 1578. He was the son of a coach maker, also named John Webster. It is likely Webster attended the |
|Merchant Taylor's school. Some scholars believe that the John Webster who entered the Middle Temple for legal |
|training in 1598 is the same John Webster who wrote The White Devil, although the evidence is largely |
|circumstantial. |
|In May, 1602, a group of writers, including Webster, were paid for a play. This marks Webster's entry into the |
|theatrical world. He was also paid for another play in October, 1602. In 1604, Webster collaborated with Thomas |
|Dekker to write Westward Ho ! |
|About 1604, Webster married and started a family with Sara Peniall. Other than documentary evidence concerning the |
|birth of his children, there is little indication of Webster's literary career until the publication of The White |
|Devil (1612). The play was acted by the Queen's Men in the Red Bull Theatre that year but was not well received. |
|Webster blamed both his audience and the ambience of the Red Bull Theatre for the play's failure, although he did |
|praise the acting of Richard Perkins. |
|About 1613, Webster wrote his most famous play, The Duchess of Malfi, and it was performed by the King's Men in 1614|
|at Blackfriars Theatre. This play was well received. Indeed, it is to The Duchess of Malfi that Webster owes his |
|ongoing critical success. |
|Between 1623 and 1624, both The Duchess of Malfi and The Devil's Law-Case were printed. Records indicate that this |
|period was a time of celebrity for Webster. He directed the Lord Mayor's Pageant of 1624 and also appears to have |
|again collaborated with Dekker. In 1634, it seems that Webster collaborated with Heywood on Appius and Virginia. |
|This play apparently belongs to the last years of Webster's career. Although no one knows the date of Webster's |
|death, Heywood lists him as a dead dramatist in 1634. |
|Webster's work, while in and out of favor, has never entirely faded from public view. Through the nineteenth and |
|twentieth centuries, critical interest continued to grow and both The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi are often|
|performed. This interest continues unabated in the twenty-first century. New historical studies and feminist |
|critique have opened a variety of interpretations of Webster's texts. |
|PLOT SUMMARY |
|Act 1 |
|The White Devil opens with a dialogue among Count Lodovico, Antonelli, and Gasparo. Lodovico has just been banished,|
|and he and his friends discuss both the evil acts he has committed as well as his plans for revenge. Significantly, |
|Lodovico questions why he is being banished when Bracciano wants to seduce Vittoria. He is especially bitter since |
|just "one kiss" from Vittoria to the Duke would have been enough to win Lodovico's pardon. |
|In the next scene, Bracciano professes his love for Vittoria to her brother Flamineo who, acting as panderer, |
|arranges for a meeting between the two. Camillo, Vittoria's husband, enters and reveals that he has not slept with |
|his wife for longer than he can remember. He is worried about being cuckolded by his wife and is ready to shut her |
|up in their home so she will not betray him. Flamineo convinces Camillo that this would be the worst possible thing |
|to do; women who are deprived of their liberty are more likely to go astray. Vittoria enters, and Flamineo, in a |
|series of asides and innuendos, tricks Camillo into thinking that Vittoria wants to go to bed with him, but that he |
|should refuse her. However, the asides to Vittoria reveal that Flamineo is plotting to arrange an assignation with |
|Bracciano. |
|Camillo exits, and Bracciano enters for his rendezvous with Vittoria. Cornelia also enters and overhears the |
|arrangements. She is appalled. Flamineo is also present and provides a running, nearly obscene commentary to the |
|audience. |
|Vittoria tells Bracciano of a dream in which she sees the graves of her husband and his wife. At this, Cornelia |
|breaks her silence and reveals herself. She lectures all on their lack of morality and tells Bracciano that his wife|
|has come to court. Bracciano leaves, and Flamineo takes his mother to task for interrupting the affair. He tells her|
|that they are dependent on Bracciano for money, since his father left them penniless. Cornelia replies that she |
|wishes he had never been born, and Flamineo responds that he would rather have a prostitute for a mother than |
|Cornelia. |
|Act 2 |
|Isabella, Bracciano's wife, comes to court, and asks for help from her brother, Francisco de Medici, and Cardinal |
|Monticelso. The men meet with Bracciano and confront him with his adultery. Bracciano then meets with Isabella. He |
|is cruel to her and announces a legal separation. Isabella expresses her rage at Vittoria, but agrees to a divorce. |
|Meanwhile, Bracciano and Flamineo plot the murders of Isabella and Camillo. Through the device of a dumb show, |
|Webster portrays the death of Isabella by poison. At nearly the same time, Flamineo tricks Camillo into thinking |
|they will have a vaulting contest. Instead, Flamineo breaks Camillo's neck and tries to make it appear as if it were|
|an accident. |
|Act 3 |
|Vittoria is tried for both adultery and murder. Although there is not enough evidence to convict her of murder, she |
|is nonetheless put in a prison by Cardinal Monticelso. Flamineo, who has feigned insanity, is released pending |
|payment of fines. Bracciano is set free. |
|Act 4 |
|Francisco and Cardinal Monticelso plan their vengeance on Vittoria and Bracciano for the death of Isabella. |
|Bracciano frees Vittoria from prison, and they flee to Padua.
Meanwhile, Lodovico is pardoned. He returns to Rome, |
|announces that he was in love with Isabella, and enters the quest for revenge. The Cardinal becomes pope and |
|excommunicates Bracciano and Vittoria. Francisco bribes Lodovico to murder Bracciano. |
|Act 5 |
|Now married, Bracciano and Vittoria hold a tournament. Francisco, Lodovico, and Gasparo, among others, disguised as |
|Moors and monks, offer their services to Bracciano. Flamineo continues his evil ways, speaking against Bracciano; |
|promising marriage to Zanche, Vittoria's maid, and then breaking his word; insulting his mother's honor to his |
|brother Marcello; and finally killing Marcello in Cornelia's presence. She becomes insane as a result. |
|In an especially fiendish plot, Lodovico and his fellow assassins sprinkle poison on Bracciano's visor. He becomes |
|violently ill. Lodovico and Gasparo pose as priests offering last rites; however, they expose their identity to
|
|Bracciano just before he dies so that he knows he will suffer eternal damnation. Meanwhile, Zanche has fallen in |
|love with the disguised Francisco, and she tells him about Flamineo's role in the deaths of Isabella and Camillo.
|
|Flamineo sees Bracciano's ghost and goes to Vittoria to inform her of the sign. He decides that he, Vittoria, and |
|Zanche should all die. He gives pistols to the women and instructs them to shoot him first, and then kill each |
|other. However, after the women supposedly kill Flamineo, they do not kill themselves, and desecrate Flamineo's |
|"corpse." In a surprise twist, Flamineo next stands up, uninjured; he has not loaded the guns with bullets and used |
|the device as a test of the women. Lodovico arrives with Gasparo and two other assassins, and they kill Flamineo, |
|Vittoria, and Zanche. Ultimately, the English ambassador puts the assassins to death. The play ends with Giovanni, |
|Bracciano's son, ready to inherit his father's dukedom. |
|CHARACTERS |
|Duke of Bracciano
|
|The Duke of Bracciano, otherwise known as Paulo Giordano Orsini, is a very powerful nobleman. He is married to the |
|lady Isabella, but is infatuated with Vittoria Corombona. Indeed, it is his lust for Vittoria that sets all of the |
|tragic events of this play in motion. Bracciano colludes with Flamineo to set up a tryst with Vittoria. Later, |
|Bracciano legally separates from his wife and plots to kill both Isabella and Camillo, Vittoria's husband. After the|
|murders, he proves himself not a very reliable lover. On the strength of a fabricated letter sent by Francisco to |
|Vittoria, Bracciano accuses her of infidelity. Only after Vittoria manages to convince him of the falsehood of the |
|love letter does he help her escape from her prison and take her to Padua. On the day of their wedding, Bracciano |
|competes in a tournament. He is then murdered by Ludovico who puts poison in his helmet. The character of Bracciano |
|has few, if any, redeeming characteristics. He is motivated by lust, is cruel to his wife and his lover, and is |
|murderous to those who cross him. |
|Camillo |
|Camillo is Vittoria's first husband. He is also a cousin to the Cardinal Monticelso. Camillo is portrayed as a weak,|
|older, impotent man. He tells both Bracciano and Flamineo that it has been a very long time since he has been in bed|
|with his wife. In short, Camillo is the stereotypical cuckold of Renaissance theatre. As the result of a plot |
|between Flamineo and Bracciano, he is murdered while vaulting with Bracciano. |
|Vittoria Corombona |
|Vittoria is generally thought to be the "white devil" of the title, a woman who betrays her husband and helps to |
|plan the murders of both her husband and her lover's wife. Nevertheless, Vittoria reveals herself throughout the |
|play to be independent, strong, intelligent, and logical. This is nowhere truer than in the scene in which she is on|
|trial for murder and adultery. Rather than acquiesce to the judge, she demands her rights, asserting that it is |
|wrong for her accuser to also be her judge. Although she fares well in this scene, she is unable to find justice in |
|the courts. Despite there being no proof of her role in the murders, she is found guilty of adultery and sentenced |
|to a house for penitent prostitutes. She escapes from there with the help of Bracciano, and she flees with her lover|
|to Padua. There they marry and are subsequently murdered themselves. |
|In the past, Vittoria's character has been read as villainous; she has been portrayed as an evil temptress. Late |
|twentieth-century readings of the play, however, demonstrate the way that Vittoria is manipulated by the patriarchal|
|power structures of Italy, including first her father, who essentially sells her to Camillo; her brother, who |
|panders her to Bracciano; Bracciano, who mistrusts and nearly betrays her; and finally the Catholic Church and the |
|political state, represented by Francisco and the pope, who plot to kill her. |
|Cornelia |
|Cornelia is mother to Vittoria, Flamineo, and Marcello. Her role in the play, while small, is pivotal. She is the |
|moral voice of the play, confronting Flamineo, Bracciano, and Vittoria in their tryst. She says that she wishes her |
|children had not been born. Bracciano curses her and says that all the harm that will come will be because of her. |
|In the last act, after Flamineo murders his brother Marcello, Cornelia goes mad. |
|Francisco de Medici |
|A member of the most powerful family in all Italy, Francisco, the Duke of Florence, is also Isabella's brother. |
|Consequently, when Bracciano has Isabella murdered and runs off with Vittoria, Francisco undertakes revenge. He is |
|also the most powerful civil authority in the play, working hand in hand with the church authority represented by |
|Cardinal Monticelso. Francisco is a man of few scruples, with plots as devious and dark as those of Bracciano and |
|Flamineo. He uses Lodovico to effect the revenge he himself seeks. Late in the play he appears in disguise as |
|Mulinassar, a Moor in service to Bracciano. Through a liaison with Zanche, he learns vital information about the |
|earlier murders that ultimately leads to the deaths of most of the characters. |
|Duke of Florence |
|See Francisco de Medici |
|Flamineo |
|Flamineo is Vittoria's brother and Cornelia's son. He is a scoundrel in every sense of the word. He serves as |
|procurer of his sister for Bracciano and engages in a series of despicable acts to further his own career. When his |
|mother confronts him about his many evil deeds, he treats her very badly, rejecting both what she says to him as |
|well as her motherly role in trying to help him. Further, Flamineo is utterly immoral; he will do anything, anytime,|
|to advance himself, regardless of the cost to others, even members of his own family. He is a parasite, depending |
|initially on Vittoria's husband for his upkeep and later on Bracciano. He ultimately betrays Bracciano and murders |
|his own brother. There is nothing redeeming about Flamineo; some critics have argued that it is he who is the "white|
|devil" of the title rather than Vittoria. |
|Count Lodovico |
|Lodovico is the first character to speak in The White Devil. He has just been banished and sets the atmosphere for |
|the entire play. He is a cynical, self-serving man. Later in the play, he is allowed to return, and he announces |
|that he was in love with the murdered Isabella. Consequently, he undertakes the revenge for her death, acting on |
|behalf of Francisco and Monticelso. In the last act, Lodovico, disguised as a Capuchin monk, comes to the household |
|of Bracciano in Padua. He sprinkles poison on Bracciano's helmet, thus killing him. In addition, as the Capuchin |
|monk, he pretends to offer last rites to Bracciano. Moments before Bracciano's death, however, Lodovico reveals |
|himself, and Bracciano dies knowing he is eternally damned. Lodovico also kills Flamineo, Zanche, and Vittoria in |
|the final scene of the play before he himself is murdered in the presence of Bracciano's son. |
|Marcello |
|Marcello is Vittoria and Flamineo's younger brother. While his role in the play is not overly large, he provides a |
|contrast to his brother. His most important scenes in the play happen late; he insults Zanche and Flamineo's |
|purported engagement to her. This enrages Flamineo who challenges him to a fight. Finally, Flamineo re-enters the |
|scene and runs Marcello through with a sword, sending their mother into madness. |
|Cardinal Monticelso |
|Cardinal Monticelso is the most powerful church figure in the play. His role is significant in that he is both |
|accuser and judge of Vittoria during her trial for the murder of her husband and Isabella. He is unable to convict |
|her of either murder, but he does punish her for committing adultery by sentencing her to a house for penitent |
|prostitutes. Monticelso later becomes Pope Paul IV; as such, he has the power to excommunicate both Vittoria and |
|Bracciano. He also plots with Francisco to effect revenge on Bracciano, Flamineo, and Vittoria. |
|Mulinassar |
|See Francisco de Medici |
|Paolo Giordano Orsini |
|See Duke of Bracciano |
|Pope Paul IV |
|See Cardinal Monticelso |
|Zanche |
|Zanche is Vittoria's Moorish maid. She is ill-treated by Flamineo who promises to marry her but who reneges. She |
|falls in love with Francisco, who is disguised as the Moor Mulinassar. In order to win his favor, she reveals the |
|details of the murders of Isabella and Camillo. In the final scene, she reveals her quick thinking as she instructs |
|Flamineo to kill himself first, so that she and Vittoria will know how to do it. Unfortunately, both Zanche and |
|Vittoria are fooled by Flamineo's faked suicide, and both women as well as Flamineo are killed by Lodovico. |
|THEMES |
|Appearance and Reality |
|In The White Devil, Webster reveals his fascination in the difference between the way events and characters appear |
|and the reality of these events and people. The title of the play itself reveals this interest; a popular proverb of|
|the time, according to Margaret Loftus Ranald in her book John Webster, taught that "the white devil is worse than |
|the black." Critics generally apply the title of the play to Vittoria. Her outwardly stunning and radiant beauty |
|stands in stark contrast to "the viciousness of her soul," according to Ranald. She is thus more despicable than an |
|openly villainous character because her beauty hides her deceit. |
|TOPICS FOR FURTHER STUDY |
|Research the life and writings of Machiavelli. How does his political theory, particularly that articulated in The |
|Prince inform Webster's writing of The White Devil ? |
|Examine several heroines of Renaissance tragedy such as Lady Macbeth, Cleopatra, the Duchess of Malfi, and Vittoria.|
|How do each of these female characters embody contemporary Renaissance ideas about women? |
|Read several revenge tragedies, beginning with Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy and including Shakespeare's Titus |
|Andronicus and Hamlet. As a group, what do these plays have in common with The White Devil ? How does the revenge |
|tragedy change across time? |
|How does the animosity between Catholics and Protestants in England in the seventeenth century manifest itself in |
|the play? What historical, political, religious, and social events reflect this animosity? Is the question of |
|religion ever adequately resolved? |
|Likewise, the richness of first Camillo's household, and later Bracciano's household in Padua, belie the corruption |
|present at their core. In the first case, Camillo is a husband who seems unable to fulfill his husbandly duties. |
|Although he has a beautiful young wife, the elderly Camillo values her only for her appearance. In some ways, |
|Vittoria represents what might be thought of as a "trophy wife." Thus, this is a marriage in appearance only. The |
|reality of Camillo's impotence makes the marriage no more than a sham. |
|Bracciano's household is just as deceitful. It is built on a structure of lies and political expediency. He clearly |
|has no regard for his wife, nor for his child. As such, Bracciano's marriage is also a sham. In response to his lust|
|for Vittoria, Bracciano first divorces, then murders his wife, all the while presenting the appearance of a wealthy,|
|important Duke. |
|The world of The White Devil is one in which, according to Ranald, "appearance is in constant conflict with reality,|
|good and evil are reversed, and humanity attempts to live in a world that accepts the individual as its god." |
|Webster, then, warns viewers to beware of appearances, both in the murky political realm of his Italian play and, by|
|extension, the convoluted and corrupt politics of the court of James I. |
|Order and Chaos |
|At the heart of late medieval and renaissance English thought is the concept of the "Great Chain of Being." This is |
|essentially a belief in a hierarchical system that encompasses all of creation, including at its base rocks and |
|other inanimate objects, through the animals who are alive, but not rational, to humans, and finally to angels. |
|There are many representations of the Great Chain of Being in both the literature and art of the period. Such a |
|hierarchical system ensures order and stability in the universe; so long as each member of creation stays in its |
|proper place, the whole of creation can function without danger. However, when one member of the chain refuses to |
|play his or her proper role, then the entire structure is affected. |
|This context is particularly important for any consideration of The White Devil. In this play, characters |
|consistently refuse to act appropriately. Vittoria and Bracciano ignore the strictures of the Church on adultery and|
|homicide. Vittoria herself refuses to stay in the prescribed role for women in her famous trial scene. She |
|appropriates male language in her own defense, saying that she must "personate masculine virtue." In so doing, |
|Vittoria blurs the necessary distinction between male and female that the hierarchical structure of the Great Chain |
|of Being demands. |
|Further, none of the characters (with the exception of Cornelia and Isabella) acts in anything but their own |
|interest. But it is Flamineo, more than any other character, who places the whole of creation in jeopardy. In the |
|murder of his brother, he reenacts the first homicide, that of Cain's against Abel. Renaissance audiences would have|
|recognized in this action a complete rejection of order and an embrace of chaos. In many ways, The White Devil |
|serves as a cautionary tale for its audiences of what can happen when the proper hierarchical structures are |
|ignored: mayhem, death, and destruction. |
|STYLE |
|Revenge Tragedy |
|The Revenge Tragedy was a popular genre of drama during the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. Thomas Kyd's The Spanish |
|Tragedy is one of the earliest examples of this type of play. Likewise, William Shakespeare's Hamlet has often been |
|considered a revenge tragedy. According to William Harmon and C. Hugh Holman in their book A Handbook to Literature,|
|revenge tragedies generally include the revenge of a father for his son, or vice versa, often directed by a ghost. |
|Other characteristics may include insanity, suicide, intrigue, sensational horror, and a scheming villain. |
|Webster plays with these conventions in The White Devil. Vittoria, Flamineo, and Bracciano are responsible for the |
|deaths of Isabella and Camillo, and the revenge perpetrated on the threesome is not by fathers or sons. Rather, the |
|entire revenge tragedy motif is a study of lust and sexuality. The original set of murders takes place because of an|
|adulterous relationship between Bracciano and Vittoria. Ultimately, although it is Isabella's family who arranges |
|for the slaying of the villains, it is Lodovico, a man who lusts after Isabella himself, who actually kills the |
|three. In addition, Flamineo feigns insanity during the court scene, not to further his revenge plot, but rather to |
|escape punishment for his role as both panderer and murderer. Flamineo himself is visited by the ghost of Isabella; |
|her avengers are not. While Flamineo is the most scheming of villains, he is outdone by the scheming of the |
|revengers—Francisco, Duke of Florence, and, ironically, Cardinal Monticelso, who later becomes Pope Paul IV. |
|Finally, Webster uses sensational horror in this play; nearly all the characters are dead by the end of the play, |
|murdered in spectacular fashion. Although Webster ably uses the conventions, he does so in ways that would be |
|unexpected to his audience. Thus, he uses the conventions of the revenge tragedy genre in order to comment on the |
|corruption and immorality of the royal court of England without seeming to do so. |
|Dumb Show |
|Another convention of the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage is the dumb show. This is a pantomime included within the |
|structure of the play to show some dramatic scene without dialogue. In The White Devil, Webster chooses to include |
|two dumb shows: one to show Isabella's murder, and the other to show Camillo's death. Dramatists such as Webster had|
|specific reasons for choosing to incorporate a dumb show in the play rather than present the action directly. |
|Sometimes, a writer might want to condense a very complicated set of actions into a shorter time frame. Another |
|reason a dumb show might be included is to somehow set the action portrayed in the dumb show apart from the |
|characters in the play and from the audience. Dumb shows often reveal hidden motives, making visible what the |
|characters in the play strive to keep secret. Kate Aughterson in her book Webster: The Tragedies argues that the |
|dumb shows are particularly important in The White Devil. She writes, "Their silent delivery reinforces our sense of|
|a claustrophobic, self-interested political world that is propelled by inner desires and demons which remain hidden |
|by the surface world.… [T]he ritualistic representation of death enhances the horror of the action." Thus the |
|theatricality of the dumb show itself mirrors the thematic tension between appearances and reality in the play. The |
|dumb show itself becomes emblematic of the larger drama. |
|HISTORICAL CONTEXT |
|The Reign of King James I and the Theatre |
|When Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603, she did so without an heir, forcing England to turn to James VI of Scotland, |
|the son of Elizabeth's old enemy, Mary Queen of Scots. As James I of England and James VI of Scotland, the King |
|expanded the royal court, making it the center of both political intrigue and power. Consequently, those around him |
|constantly vied for position. James was famous for his favorites, men he seemed almost romantically attached to. His|
|life style, and the gifts he gave to his favorites, expanded the royal debt to such an extent that it led to bitter |
|disagreements with Parliament, who refused to pay for the King's pleasures. |
|At the heart of James' rule was his utter belief in the doctrine of the divine right of kings. That is, James |
|believed that he was chosen by God to rule absolutely over his subjects and his realm. He believed that he could |
|make and break rules and laws as he saw fit. This led to a chaotic and difficult time for those under him, as |
|statutes of the realm could not be considered stable or permanent. Likewise, although James was a great patron of |
|the theatre of his day, he enforced strict censorship over the content of the plays that could be presented. Thus, |
|playwrights had to be very careful about the subject matter they addressed. Shakespeare, for example, chose to write|
|Macbeth in order to flatter James I, who was interested in the Scottish succession that led to his investiture as |
|king of Scotland, and in witchcraft and the supernatural. Webster, on the other hand, had to disguise his contempt |
|for the court of James I by setting his play in far-off Catholic Italy. |
|Anti-Catholicism and the Gender Wars |
|Although there was no clear cut understanding of the role of the female monarch in Britain, by the time James I |
|ascended to the English throne, there had been three powerful women on the thrones of the island, dominating the |
|politics of the previous half-century. Queen Mary, who ruled from 1553 to 1558, was the daughter of Henry VIII and |
|Catherine of Aragon. Mary embraced her mother's faith, and her marriage to Philip of Spain placed her squarely in |
|the Catholic camp. During her reign, there was widespread persecution of Protestants, earning her the name of Bloody|
|Mary. |
|Queen Mary died without an heir, and there was considerable turmoil surrounding the succession. Many English people,|
|particularly Roman Catholics, believed that Mary, Queen of Scots, the granddaughter of Henry VIII's sister, was the |
|legitimate heir to the English throne. Their reasoning was that Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon was illegal|
|and that his subsequent marriage to Anne Boleyn, consequently, was not a marriage. In the eyes of Catholics in |
|England, Scotland, and across Europe, this rendered the young Elizabeth, Henry's daughter by Anne, a bastard and |
|thus, ineligible to inherit the throne. |
|Mary was crowned Queen of Scotland just eight days after her birth in 1542 but was promptly sent to France by her |
|mother, who served as regent in Scotland. In France, Mary was betrothed to the heir to the French crown and raised |
|as a Catholic in the French court. She returned to Scotland at the death of her young husband and assumed the |
|leadership of the country. Her subsequent marriage to Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, a Catholic, enraged her |
|Protestant advisors. This, in addition to her inappropriate intimacy with her Italian secretary, David Riccio, |
|further alienated her from the Protestant factions in Scotland. Ultimately, Mary was forced to abdicate her throne |
|to her son in 1567 and flee Scotland to England, seeking protection from her cousin Elizabeth, who was crowned queen|
|of England in 1558. She lived under house arrest for nearly twenty years. At the same time, however, Mary continued |
|to hatch plots with her French family abroad and Catholic supporters in Scotland and England to overthrow |
|Elizabeth's moderate Protestant government. Reluctantly, Elizabeth had Mary executed for treason. |
|Under Elizabeth, the hostilities between Catholics and Protestants went underground. Some of the population |
|continued to object to a female monarch nonetheless. John Knox, for example, wrote a famous tract called "The |
|Monstrous Regiment of Women" in 1558, railing against Queen Mary I, Mary Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth. Thus, the |
|issue of the monarchy became increasingly murky in the midst of both the anti-Catholicism and the misogyny of the |
|Reformed Church. |
|When Elizabeth died without an heir, English men were relieved to be able to find a monarch of the appropriate |
|gender and religion in James VI of Scotland, who became James I of England. His marriage to Anne of Denmark, who |
|converted to Catholicism, however, again raised the specter of a Catholic succession. In 1605, Roman Catholic |
|hostility toward the English government and monarchy flared in the failed Guy Fawkes gunpowder plot, in which a |
|group of rebels attempted to blow up both the Parliament and the king. As a result, Catholics were subjected to |
|increasing harassment across the country. |
|COMPARE & CONTRAST |
|1600s: In 1611, King James I authorizes the translation and writing of the Holy Bible into English. The King James |
|Version is a poetic masterpiece and makes the Bible available to a growing number of people. |
|Today: The King James Version of the Bible is still in wide use among English-speaking Christians, in spite of a |
|growing number of translations in contemporary English. |
|1600s: Anti-Catholicism grows in England along with the growth of the Reformed movement, leading to the English |
|Civil War in 1648 and the beheading of Charles I, James's son. |
|Today: While most English people are either secular or members of the state sponsored Church of England, there is |
|little or no discrimination against Catholic citizens. |
|1600s: Women have few rights under the law in England. They may not serve in any political or legal capacity, their |
|inherited wealth is under the direction of their husbands, and their chances for employment are nearly non-existent.|
|Today: English women enjoy full privileges of citizenship under the law and serve in every capacity in English |
|culture. |
|The twin anxieties of religion and gender, then, brought about by this historical context, inform Webster's play. He|
|is able in The White Devil to demonize both women and the Catholic Church in the characters of Vittoria, Zanche, and|
|Cardinal Monticelso, who later becomes the pope. By couching his play in these terms, Webster is able to make what |
|would otherwise be considered subversive statements about the rule of James I himself, neatly hidden in the familiar|
|language of anti-Catholicism and misogyny. |
|CRITICAL OVERVIEW |
|The White Devil, along with Webster's other great play The Duchess of Malfi, assures Webster of canonical status in |
|Jacobean drama. The White Devil, however, has not always been well received by audiences and critics. Webster |
|himself complained about the first staging of the play and its reception, blaming the weather, the venue, and the |
|audience. |
|Nevertheless, the play continued to be performed throughout the seventeenth century with success. This was not the |
|case in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when, Margaret Loftus Ranald notes in John Webster that there were |
|no performances of the play at all. |
|The chaotic, bleak world of The White Devil appealed to audiences and critics alike in the twentieth century; over |
|ten major productions were mounted, including one by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1996. Likewise, scholars who |
|study the play have found much to write about in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. According to Don D. Moore|
|in his book John Webster and His Critics: 1617–1964, T. E. Hulme, T. S. Eliot, and F. R. Leavis did much to bring |
|Webster into the critical spotlight. Indeed, Moore writes, "Almost all of the important later Webster criticism owes|
|something to their doctrines." Specifically, Eliot looked to Webster for atmosphere, an atmosphere that found its |
|way into Eliot's famous work The Waste Land. |
|In the later twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, new historicist (sometimes called cultural materialist) and|
|feminist critics in particular have found much to occupy themselves in the text of The White Devil. Dympna |
|Callaghan, for example, examines the way the white Vittoria and the black Zanche mirror each other. Further, she |
|argues that "it is untamed sexual desire that leads to Vittoria's imprisonment." |
|Others, such as Sheryl Stevenson and Laura Behling, are concerned with the importance of sexual difference in the |
|play. Stevenson, writing in Sexuality and Politics in Renaissance Drama, argues that it is through "their sudden |
|accession to unrestrained language [that] these women are perceived by male characters as not simply unwomanly but |
|inhuman." Likewise, Behling, writing in an article for English Language Notes 33, demonstrates that Vittoria's use |
|of masculine language initiates an "anxiety of alternative sexualities." |
|Cultural materialist critic Jonathan Dollimore, in an alternative reading, examines the way that the power structure|
|of a society both defines and destroys identity. He argues, "It is in the death scene that we see fully the play's |
|sense of how individuals can actually be constituted by the destructive social forces working upon them.… Vittoria |
|and Flamineo refuse subservience even as they serve and in so doing are destroyed as much by their rebellion as that|
|which they rebel against." |
|Although the text of The White Devil has not changed significantly since its first publication, the way critics view|
|the play has changed dramatically, from a straightforward critique of the plot of the play, to a consideration of |
|the violation of the unities, to finally a full consideration of the bleak and shifting world Webster creates for |
|his characters. In this, critics use their own historical contexts to find meaning in The White Devil. |
|CRITICISM |
|Diane Henningfeld |
|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 and reproduce cultural assumptions, or "what everybody knows." Thus, an |
|individual writer such as Webster, according to new historicist thought, not only produces a literary text, he |
|speaks the culture itself through his text. |
|Likewise, feminist critics often employ new historical methods to consider the ways that a culture constructs the |
|idea of woman. The assumptions a culture makes about women can sometimes be uncovered by examining the cultural |
|artifacts. Throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, as in any age, literary depictions of women necessarily |
|reflect contemporary understandings of the physical, religious, and legal status of women. In addition, the literary|
|constructions of female characters also often reveal deep-seated cultural anxieties about gender, sexuality, and |
|social stability. Consequently, it should come as no surprise that in The White Devil, Webster both reflects and |
|reinforces contemporary ideas about women. Moreover, Webster engages the very patriarchal structures that serve to |
|maintain the position of women in the culture, most notably the church and the state. That Webster's female |
|characters seem so ambiguous in their roles reveals the essentially ambiguous position occupied by women in Jacobean|
|England. |
|To begin, an important, yet often neglected, place to look for an understanding of women of the period is in the |
|medical literature. Throughout the period, writers debate the nature of women and the purpose of their bodies. |
|Because men are seen as the norm, female bodies are considered oddly "other." Many theorists follow Aristotle in his|
|assertion that women are imperfect men; however, by the seventeenth century, most medical writers have at least |
|acknowledged that women are of the same species as men and do, indeed, have souls. Virtually all contemporary |
|seventeenth century writers agree, however, that women are inferior to men physically; whereas men are active and |
|strong, women are weak and passive. In addition, women are more prone to the demands of their bodies. Their monthly |
|periods, their susceptibility to impregnation, and their ability to nurture and sustain children through lactation |
|all demonstrate this concentration on the body. Thus, while men are associated with the function of the mind and |
|reason, women are associated with the function of the body and passion. In this, women are closer to beasts than to |
|men. This thinking, of course, leads to an understanding of women as the sites of unbridled sexual passion, a |
|passion that was very dangerous for the culture. According to Kate Aughterson, "female sexuality was publicly |
|perceived as dangerous and even murderous, and … it was also visibly seen to be subject to systematic patriarchal |
|control and potential abuse." |
|Webster demonstrates from the beginning of The White Devil these ideas. For example, when Flamineo arranges the |
|tryst between Bracciano and Vittoria he says, "Women are like / curst dogs: civility keeps them tied all daytime, |
|but they / are let loose at midnight." Flamineo reveals in this speech his disregard for women as well as his belief|
|that they are all no better than "dogs," fulfilling their sexual desires with whomever crosses their paths. Thus, |
|Camillo's first response to his concern about Vittoria's chastity is to consider locking her up. Flamineo reinforces|
|the commonly held ideas about women by telling Camillo that locking her up might produce the opposite of what |
|Camillo wants. Flamineo states, "These politic enclosures for paltry mutton makes more rebellion in the flesh than |
|all the provocative electuaries doctors have uttered since last Jubilee." In this statement, Flamineo likens women |
|to "mutton," another reference to the animal-like nature of the female, and refers to the "rebellion in the flesh," |
|yet another reference to the fleshly, lust-filled concerns of women. It would be easy to dismiss Flamineo as nothing|
|more than a misogynistic villain; however, these sentiments would have been very familiar to Webster's audiences. |
|While they might reject the speaker of these ideas, it is likely that there would be some nodding in assent to the |
|ideas themselves. After all, for that audience, this is something "everybody knows." |
|A second important source for information about women is in the religious writing of the period. Much of this |
|thought is based on earlier writings from late antiquity and the Middle Ages, first inscribed by the early Church |
|fathers. These texts provide women with two models: they are either Mary, the virginal mother of God, or Eve, the |
|sexual temptress who causes the downfall of man and the exile from Eden. According to this theology, women as a |
|group bear the entire blame for the loss of Eden. This model, like the medical one, also demonstrates the belief |
|that women are both filled with lust and sexual desire and that this desire is dangerous for all of creation. |
|WHAT DO I READ NEXT? |
|The Duchess of Malfi (1623) is Webster's other important play. It also features a woman as the main character. The |
|Duchess, however, is virtuous; her only crime is that she tries to assert her own freedom of choice. |
|Women in Early Modern England (1998), by Sara Mendelson and Patricia Crawford, offers a study of the material lives |
|of English women of all social classes. The book includes excellent chapters on politics, economics, and |
|occupational identities, among other topics. |
|This Stage-Play World: English Literature and Its Backgrounds, 1580–1625 (1983), by Julia Briggs, offers a fine |
|overview of the drama of the era, including a discussion of both gender and politics. |
|Shakespeare's so-called "Roman" tragedies such as Coriolanus (1608) and Antony and Cleopatra (1606–1607) offer the |
|reader the literary context within which Webster worked. |
|Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince, written in 1513 and published in 1532, is an important text for Renaissance |
|writers interested in politics and power. Webster was clearly influenced by Machiavellian notions of the separation |
|of ethics and state politics. |
|The world of The White Devil, then, is a very dangerous place indeed, since from the opening lines the reader |
|understands that this is a world reduced to lust, corruption, and sexuality. Lodovico, who both opens and closes the|
|play, considers even Fortune to be female, stating, "Fortune's a right whore." This line signals the audience that |
|in The White Devil, there is nothing that cannot be bought and sold. Even Fortune is figured as a prostitute, |
|foreshadowing the traffic in human flesh that underpins the entire play. Clearly, in a world where everything can be|
|bought and sold, everything is prostitution. |
|Flamineo, for example, sells himself to Bracciano in order to keep himself in the style to which he has become |
|accustomed. Indeed, he tells his mother his history of selling himself: first at the university where for seven |
|years he "heel[ed] his tutor's stockings"; then graduating through connivance with an older man; until finally |
|arriving at Bracciano's service, where he has become "more lecherous by far / but not a suit richer." For Flamineo, |
|then, who has been selling himself for favors for much of his life, pandering his sister is scarcely a stretch. |
|Moreover, in his willingness to sell himself, he, like Fortune, is a prostitute, and by extension, gendered female. |
|Ironically, although it is Flamineo, acting as pimp, who sells his sister, it is Vittoria herself who goes to trial |
|and is punished for adultery. Twenty-first century audiences might see Vittoria's choice to engage in the |
|assignation with Bracciano as an opportunity to better herself financially and materially. It is likely, however, |
|that Jacobean audiences would see her acquiescence to Bracciano as the expression of her lust-filled body. |
|Moreover, for the patriarchal structures maintaining stability in the culture, Vittoria's adultery is far more |
|dangerous than is Flamineo's pandering. The reason for this is clear, as an examination of the legal theory and |
|records of the day reveal. The inheritance of property and wealth in England from the time of the Norman Conquest |
|into the Jacobean period is patrilinear. That is, the wealth moved from father to eldest son. Concurrent with this |
|system, however, is the nagging anxiety that a man can never know for sure that the son who will inherit his |
|property is really of his own bloodline. Should a wife engage in an extramarital affair, it is possible that a |
|husband's wealth could pass to his rival's son. Thus, the culture exhibits ongoing and obsessive preoccupation with |
|cuckolding. |
|Furthermore, Vittoria's appropriation of male language in her trial presents yet another dangerous challenge to the |
|patriarchal structures of the culture. Legal writing of the period reports that women have no voice in court. They |
|are unable to serve as lawyers or on juries. Rather, except in rare instances of rape or the murder of their |
|husbands, women are legally silenced. Vittoria, however, says, |
|Humbly thus |
|Thus low, to the most worthy and respected |
|Lieger ambassadors, my modesty |
|And womanhood I tender; but withal |
|So entangled in a cursed accusation |
|That my defence, of force like Perseus, |
|Must personate masculine virtue. to the point: |
|Find me but guilty, sever head from body, |
|We'll part good friends; I scorn to hold my life |
|At yours or any man's entreaty, sir. |
|That Vittoria's statement is heard at all is rare; that she chooses to liken herself to a man, surprising; and that |
|she "scorns to hold [her] life … at … any man's entreaty" is downright dangerous. For the legal, religious, and |
|physiological truths of the day to have any power at all, each member of the culture must agree to play his or her |
|part. In this case, Vittoria clearly does not. Consequently, while her affair with Bracciano threatens his |
|bloodline, her speech in the court threatens the entire world. It is fitting, then, that in the final scene, it is |
|Giovanni, Bracciano's rightful heir, who witnesses the death of Lodovico, and orders all the bodies, including the |
|masculinized Vittoria and the feminized Flamineo, to be removed. By so doing, he reestablishes himself and |
|patriarchy, thus stabilizing the world. Only through the eradication of both Vittoria and Flamineo can proper gender|
|coding be reestablished. |
|Given the cultural understanding of, and preoccupation with, the subversive nature of women's sexuality, therefore, |
|it is little wonder that this play takes as its central character a woman who refuses to be controlled by the |
|patriarchal structures designed to hold her in her place: the church and the state. Throughout the period, the role |
|of women becomes increasingly problematic as the culture struggles with changing physiological, legal, and religious|
|ideas. Thus, because The White Devil is only a play, and not reality, Webster's audience can examine from afar the |
|cultural assumptions underpinning their own changing world view through what John Russell Brown calls "Webster's |
|presentation of an entire world, of a divided and changing society." |
|Source: |
|Diane Henningfeld, Critical Essay on The White Devil, in Drama for Students, Gale, 2004. |
|Curt Guyette |
|Guyette, a longtime journalist, received a bachelor's degree in English writing from the University of Pittsburgh. |
|In this essay, Guyette describes how John Webster's depiction of court life in Renaissance Italy can be viewed as a |
|cautionary tale that still has relevance today. |
|The White Devil is based on a true story that occurred about 30 years prior to the writing of this Elizabethan drama|
|circa 1612. As Matthew Gurewitsch wrote in a story about the play for the New York Times |
|The core of historical truth was this: in 1585 in Italy—that proverbial sink of sensational depravity—the Duke of |
|Bracciano had conceived a passion for one Vittoria Accramboni, who succumbed only after Bracciano had arranged the |
|murders first of his own wife, then of Vittoria's husband. In the black-magic lantern of Webster's imagination, it |
|all made for darkly glittering theater. |
|Amidst that dark glitter, the play's major themes are relatively easy to discern. Travis Bogard, in an essay that |
|appears in Shakespeare's Contemporaries, identifies three prominent threads that run throughout: "first, the rotten |
|prodigality of court life; second, the evils of a social system in which sycophants flatter a lord for an uncertain |
|living; third, the treachery of a prince's capricious 'justice."' There is no attempt whatsoever by Webster to |
|conceal his complete disdain for the world in which this drama is set. His view is well summarized by the character |
|Vittoria as she utters her dying words: "Oh, happy they that never saw the court, Nor ever knew great men by |
|report." In other words, it would be better to suffer the fate of a commoner than to mingle with the mighty in the |
|court of a prince, because it is a ruthless world indeed. |
|This is a brutal, blood-gorged play populated by characters that have not a trace of morality. They lie and scheme |
|and kill. They betray each other—even members of their own family—without a second's thought. And for what? To feed |
|their greed for wealth and power. Take for example Flamineo, a truly despicable character that stops at nothing in a|
|desperate, ultimately futile attempt to obtain riches. He falsely flatters those in power, murders his own brother, |
|and offers up his sister as little more than a prostitute in order to ingratiate himself to the duke, Brachiano. The|
|duke, too, is a despicable person, willing to betray and murder in order to obtain the woman he covets. In this |
|sense, lust is greed's close cousin. Both are base motives, and, as this play demonstrates, blindly pursuing them |
|leads to ruin. Like her brother Flamineo, Vittoria has few redeeming qualities. To clear a path to the altar, she |
|encourages Brachiano to murder both his wife and Vittoria's husband. Brachiano complies by having both of them |
|killed. Neither spouse, both of whom are innocent of any wrongdoing, deserves such a cruel fate; that is highlighted|
|in particular by the death of Brachiano's wife, Isabella, who receives her fatal dose of poison by lovingly kissing |
|a portrait of her husband. A more ironic death is difficult to imagine. Bogard's observations are certainly accurate|
|as far as they go. There is no doubt Webster's play is an indictment of a specific time and place. It is also, in |
|terms of the broad picture, historically accurate. |
|Perhaps the most famous account of the political culture that flourished in Renaissance Italy can be found in the |
|The Prince, a book written by Niccolo Machiavelli in the early 1500s. It is from his name that the term |
|Machiavellian is derived. This term is used to describe a person who sees morality as having no place in political |
|affairs. In Machiavelli's view, when it comes to the quest for power and political dominance, any means is justified|
|if it leads to achieving the desired result. In his two-volume book The Outline of History, author H. G. Wells |
|describes Machiavelli as the epitome of all that was wrong in the society that spawned him. |
|This man manifestly had no belief in any righteousness at all.… It seemed to him that to get power, to gratify one's|
|desires and sensibilities and hates, to swagger triumphantly in the world, must be the crown of human desire. |
|Wells goes on to describe Machiavelli as a "morally blind man living in a little world of morally blind men. It is |
|clear that his style of thought was the style of thought of the Court of his time." The politically powerful of |
|Machiavelli's time and place, explains Wells, spent their energy and resources plotting to "outdo one another, to |
|rob weaker contemporaries, to destroy rivals.… They had little or no vision of any scheme of human destinies greater|
|than this game they played against one another." It is this milieu, or environment, that Webster so expertly |
|portrays in The White Devil and in a second play, The Duchess of Malfi. In the introduction to Webster & Ford |
|Selected Plays, a collection containing these two dramas, G. B. Harrison describes their overall thrust this way: |
|"The world called Webster is a peculiar one. It is inhabited by people, driven like animals, and perhaps like men, |
|only by their instincts, but more blindly and more ruinously." Harrison goes on to explain in graphic language: |
|This is ultimately the most sickly, distressing feature of Webster's characters, their foul and indestructible |
|vitality.… They kill, love, torture one another blindly and without ceasing. A play of Webster's is full of the |
|feverish and ghastly turmoil of a nest of maggots. |
|What is it that prevents a society from remaining mired in that sort of primal muck? The answer can be found by |
|understanding exactly what is absent from Webster's world: morality. Whatever its source, a society must have a |
|foundation of rules defining right and wrong. It must have some sort of moral base that dictates what is acceptable |
|conduct. Otherwise, the result is chaos found in this play, with people reduced to the lowest type of life form as |
|they seek to brutally satisfy their greed and lust, their quest for power, and their desire for revenge. Webster |
|seems to be saying that these instincts are indeed primal, and without some sort of social contract to keep them in |
|check, the result will be a world in which no one is safe. |
|This play is not a pleasant one. It is as bloody as any modern tale of gangsters or drug lords. But the message it |
|contains is important because mankind's baser instincts have not disappeared over the centuries since this play was |
|written. Look around at different parts of the world today and examples of brutal dictatorships, where the only rule|
|is that of the iron fist, can still be found far too often. But the opposite is also true: cultures that construct |
|moral codes, that clearly define ideas of right and wrong, allow the people in them to flourish. Without such a |
|moral compass guiding society, man is reduced to living under the law of the jungle—even though he may wear jewels |
|and clothes of fine brocade—with survival depending on sheer power, treachery, and cunning stealth. It is a life of |
|torture, a life without peace. By focusing a critical eye on the culture of the Italian court of the sixteenth |
|century, Webster illustrates a more universal lesson, which is that life in a society that lacks a moral foundation |
|is truly hellish. |
|Source: |
|Curt Guyette, Critical Essay on The White Devil, in Drama for Students, Gale, 2004 |
|Linda Costanzo Cahir |
|In the following essay, Cahir analyzes the influence of The White Devil on T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land. |
|Near the end of "The Burial of the Dead" section of The Waste Land, Eliot adapts two lines from John Webster's 1612 |
|play, White Devil, a tumultuous melodrama set in the moral/spiritual wasteland of sixteenth century Italy. The play |
|centers on the treacherous affair of the Duke of Brachiano and Vittoria Corombona. Into this Italian wasteland, a |
|symbolic knight appears in the form of Vittoria's brother, Marcello, who is murdered by his own brother, the |
|ignominious Flamineo. As a consequence of Marcello's death, the redemptive force is aborted, several Italian duchies|
|are in fragments, and the play ends devoid of hope. Aborted efforts, cultures in fragments, and the implied absence |
|of hope are conditions which aptly describe Eliot's Waste Land. |
|At the end of White Devil Cornelia speaks the words that Eliot adapted into The Waste Land. The lines are from the |
|dirge which she sings over the body of Marcello, her dead son: |
|Call for the robin red breast and the wren, |
|Since o'er shady groves they hover, |
|And with leaves and flow'rs cover |
|The friendless bodies of unburied men… |
|But keep the wolf far thence: that's foe to men, |
|For with his nails, he'll dig it up again. |
|In the context of the play, Cornelia's plaintive desire for the burial of her son's body exceeds a simple wish for |
|propriety. Her song, composed of imperatives, suggests her belief that the literal burial of the body essential to |
|the repose of her son's soul. |
|Avowing that her son's body must be buried and remain buried, Cornelia warns that the destructive digging of the |
|wolf must be kept "far thence." Her supplication that "leaves and flow'rs cover / The friendless bodies of unburied |
|men," coupled with the image of wrens and robins, reminds us that the burial of the dead should be a life-affirming |
|activity as natural as nest-building is to birds. Horrid examples of the living punishing the living are displayed |
|throughout White Devil; Cornelia's isolated voice makes us realized how unthinkable it would be for the living to |
|punish the dead, also. |
|The most essential changes that Eliot made to the lines he adapted from White Devil were to replace Webster's "wolf"|
|with "Dog" and Webster's "foe" with "friend," so that the Eliotian line reads: "O keep the Dog far hence, that's |
|friend to men." Unlike the play's image of a wolf, the poem's image of the dog is rich in duality. In Mysterium |
|Conjunctionis Carl Jung devotes ten pages to the explication of the symbolism of the dog. Jung concludes that the |
|dog "signifies the highest and the lowest, the brightest and the darkest, the best and the most detestable. It |
|represents the pattern of renewal and rebirth, the endless creation and disappearance." |
|In "The Burial of the Dead" this pattern of rebirth and renewal is alluded to by a shell-shocked (or mad) Londoner, |
|who speaks Cornelia's emended lines. Calling out to his apparent war comrade (Stetson), the speaker confuses the |
|battles of World War I with the Punic Wars' Battle at Mylae. He further muddles the burying of a corpse with the |
|planting of seasonal vegetables and asks if the former (i.e., the corpse) has "begun to sprout." He warns, "'O keep |
|the Dog far hence, that's friend to men, / Or with his nails he'll dig it up again'!" |
|Specifically, the speaker seems scarred by the memory of what he has seen: the mounds of unburied dead piled in the |
|trenches of World War I. However, his ghoulish question, Has the corpse begun to bloom?, is at the universal heart |
|of sacred fertility rites, since, essentially, these rites involve the burial of the dead (usually, a god or his |
|effigy) and the subsequent unearthing of the body. The resulting effect of the ceremony (i.e., the resurrection of |
|the god) was thought to translate directly to a renewed fertility of the land. |
|In the Stetson passage, a corpse (a shape reminiscent of an ear of corn, a standard burial effigy) is "planted," and|
|the speaker wonders: will it sprout, will it bloom? Eliot clearly tells us that if the unearthing happens at all, |
|the requisite digging up of the body will be done by a dog, not by a man. Thus, the success of the fertility ritual,|
|the entire hope of the Waste Land, in a sense, pivots on the dog. |
|In changing Webster's words, Eliot made a grammatical change: he capitalized the word "dog," thus creating the |
|proper (or mock-deific), while simultaneously retaining the universal (the generic term "dog"). |
|Eliot's Dog is a slippery image. The "Dog of this passage could be the dog of fidelity, watchfulness, nobility," by |
|proper name called "Maera … the faithful dog of Icarius." It could be the dog of Orthestheus, who "is said to have |
|given birth to a piece of wood, which Orthestheus concealed in the earth. In the spring, a vine grew forth from it."|
|In yet another form, this is the dog that helped Isis collect the dismembered parts of the body of Osiris. In short,|
|this is the dog of many names, but one essential nature: "the companion of healers … and Mother Goddesses … and |
|rain-makers," the dog of "resurrection and rebirth," the dog described as both "a thunder animal, a rain-bringer." |
|In this manifestation, the dog embodies the hope of the Waste Land. Possessing the much valued Eliotian quality of |
|"the discipline of directed action," this dog will prove a "Friend to man" when with "his nails" he digs up the |
|buried corpse, thus compelling the fertility rite which will bring both thunder and life-restoring rain. |
|Yet, the protagonist of the Stetson passage wants to keep this "Dog far hence." He does not want dormancy stirred to|
|activity; he far prefers the sanctuary of death-like slumber, that winter's catalepsy which temporarily bestows |
|forgetfulness upon his knowledge of a world dissolute. Thus, the Stetson protagonist prefers the "dog" which is |
|profaner of the sacred fertility rite and aborter of the ritual. In this manifestation, the dog is a "keeper of the |
|boundaries between this world and the next … the attendant on the dead," and the symbol of "destruction, |
|catastrophe." This is the mad dog that fears water—the very water that would restore the Waste Land. This "Dog" is |
|Cerberus, guardian of the entrance to the underworld, and, as such, represents the "gloom of dawn and dusk which |
|contains hostile … dangerous … and demonic" powers. |
|This image is the antithesis of the version of dog as guardian, shepherd, and friend to man. In its antithetical |
|posture, this dog, as scavenger, is undistilled appetitive force. He digs at the corpse that he might feed on it |
|till sated. His actions pervert the fertility myth in which God gives his own body to feed his people, that they |
|might live. |
|In Eliot's adaptation of Webster's lines, he replaced Webster's word "foe" with his word "friend." It is clear that |
|the Stetson protagonist, who does not want the stir of life, believes that the dog that is friend to man must be |
|kept from its digging. Thus, in this Eliotian world of modern paradox, the dog that is friend is foe, and that which|
|is foe is friend. |
|Source: |
|Linda Costanzo Cahir, "T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land and John Webster's White Devil," in Yeats Eliot Review, Vol. 14,|
|No. 4, Spring 1997, pp. 43–44. |
|SOURCES |
|Aughterson, Kate, Webster: The Tragedies, Palgrave, 2001. |
|Behling, Laura L., "'S/he Scandles Our Proceedings': The Anxiety of Alternative Sexualities in The White Devil and |
|The Duchess of Malfi," in English Language Notes, Vol. 33, No. 4, June 1996, pp. 24–43. |
|Bogard, Travis, "An Interpretation of The White Devil," in Shakespeare's Contemporaries, edited by Max Bluestone and|
|Norman Rabkin, Prentice-Hall, 1970, p. 272; originally published in The Tragic Satire of John Webster, University of|
|California Press, 1955, pp. 119–28. |
|Brown, John Russell, "Introduction," in The White Devil, Manchester University Press, 1996, pp. 1–27. |
|Callaghan, Dympna, Women and Gender in Renaissance Tragedy: A Study of "King Lear," "Othello," "The Duchess of |
|Malfi," and "The White Devil," Humanities Press International, 1989, pp. 10, 140–47. |
|Dollimore, Jonathan, Radical Tragedy: Religion, Ideology, and Power in the Drama of Shakespeare and His |
|Contemporaries, University of Chicago Press, 1984, pp. 231–46. |
|Gurewitsch, Matthew, "A Dark Fable Escapes Shakespeare's Shadow" in the New York Times, January 7, 2001, Sec. 2, |
|Col. 1, p. 1. |
|Harmon, William, and C. Hugh Holman, A Handbook to Literature, Prentice Hall, 1999, p. 440. |
|Harrison, G. B., "Introduction," in Selected Plays, by John Webster and John Ford, E. P. Dutton, 1974, p. x. |
|Moore, Don D., John Webster and His Critics, 1617–1964, Louisiana State University Press, 1966, pp. 97–100. |
|Ranald, Margaret Loftus, John Webster, Twayne Publishers, 1989, pp. 29–43. |
|Stevenson, Sheryl, "'As Differing as Two Adamants': Sexual Difference in The White Devil," in Sexuality and Politics|
|in Renaissance Drama, edited by Carole Levin and Karen Robertson, Edwin Mellen Press, 1991, pp. 159–74. |
|Webster, John, The White Devil, edited by John Russell Brown, Manchester University Press, 1996. |
|Wells, H. G., The Outline of History, Doubleday, 1971, pp. 660–61. |
|"THE MOST ESSENTIAL CHANGES THAT ELIOT MADE TO THE LINES HE ADAPTED FROM WHITE DEVIL WERE TO REPLACE WEBSTER'S |
|'WOLF' WITH 'DOG' AND WEBSTER'S 'FOE' WITH 'FRIEND' …" |
|FURTHER READING |
|Cave, Richard, Text and Performance: "The White Devil" and "The Duchess of Malfi," Macmillan, 1988. |
|Cave provides a brief and accessible analysis of twentieth-century performances of both plays. |
|Forker, Charles, The Skull beneath the Skin: The Achievement of John Webster, Southern Illinois University Press, |
|1986. |
|Forker's book offers a good summary of earlier critical responses to The White Devil. |
|Goldberg, Dena, Between Worlds: A Study of the Plays of John Webster, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1989. |
|Goldberg analyzes the political and social issues in The White Devil, considering the play as an |
|"anti-establishment" play. |
|Kastan, David Scott, and Peter Stallybrass, Staging the Renaissance: Interpretations of Elizabethan and Jacobean |
|Drama, Routledge, 1993. |
|This book offers students excerpts from the most important contemporary critical writers, as well as complete essays|
|on both The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi. |
|The White Devil |
| |
|© 2004 by Gale. Gale is an imprint of The Gale Group, Inc., a division of Thomson Learning Inc. |

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