The Duchess of Malfi Essay & Criticism

The Duchess of Malfi Critical Overview

The Duchess of Malfi is considered one of Webster's two greatest works and one of the canonical works of Jacobean drama. It is also roundly criticized as being weak, confusing, and illogical. In his thorough overview of more than three centuries of criticism, John Webster and His Critics 1617-1964, Don D. Moore writes that there may be no one other than Webster "whose plays have received a more varied reception and whose critics have been so divided among themselves on whether the writer was due praise or excoriation." In Webster's own time, The Duchess of Malfi sold enough tickets to be profitable, and the publication of the play in 1623 was accompanied by verses from other playwrights who seem to have found the play worthy of praise.

From the second half of the seventeenth century through the eighteenth, the play was seldom performed and there was no extended criticism...
(read more)