John Webster (1580-1634), The Duchess of Malfi (1623), (edited by Rene Weis). Oxford, 2009. Courtesy Amazon.com.
| John Webster | |
|---|---|
| Born |
1580 London England |
| Died | 1634 |
| Spouse | Sara Peniall |
| Information | |
| Magnum opus |
The White Devil The Duchess of Malfi |
John Webster (?1580-1634?) was an English playwright best known for his tragedies The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, which are often regarded as masterpieces of the English stage.[1]
Life[]
Overview[]
Though in some respects Webster came nearest to William Shakespeare of any of his contemporaries, almost nothing has come down to us of his life. Even the dates of his birth and death are uncertain. He appears to have been the son of a London tailor, to have been a freeman of the Merchant Taylor's Company, and clerk of the parish of St. Andrews, Holborn. 4 plays are known to be his, The White Devil; or, The life and death of Vittoria Corombona (1612), Appius and Virginia (1654), The Devil's Law Case (1623), and The Duchess of Malfi (1623), and he collaborated with Drayton, Middleton, Heywood, Dekker, etc., in the production of others. He does not appear to have been much regarded in his own day, and it was only in the 19th century that his great powers began to be appreciated and expounded by such critics as Lamb and Hazlitt, and in later days Swinburne. The 1st says, "To move a horror skilfully, to touch a soul to the quick, to lay upon fear as much as it can bear, to wean and weary a life till it is ready to drop, and then step in with mortal instruments to take its last forfeit, this only a Webster can do." Webster revels in the horrible, but the touch of genius saves his work from mere brutality, and evokes pity and sorrow where, without it, there would be only horror and disgust. His work is extremely unequal, and he had no power of construction, but his extraordinary insight into motives and feelings redeem all his failings and give him a place 2nd only to Marlowe and Ben Jonson among the contemporaries of Shakespeare.[2]
Youth and education[]
Webster's life is obscure, and the dates of his birth and death are not known. His father, a coach maker also named John Webster, married a blacksmith's daughter named Elizabeth Coates on 4 November 1577, and it is likely that Webster was born not long after in or near London.[3]
On 1 August 1598, "John Webster, lately of the New Inn" was admitted to the Middle Temple, an Inn of Court; in view of the legal interests evident in his dramatic work; this is possibly the playwright.[4]
Career[]
Webster married 17-year-old Sara (Peniall) on 18 March 1606, and their oldest child, John, was baptized at the parish of St. Dunstan-in-the-West on 8 March 1605 or 1606. Bequests in the will of a neighbour who died in 1617 indicate that other children were born to him.[3]
Webster was a writer for the stage in the year 1602, when he had a share in 3 plays noted by Philip Henslow.[5] These included a tragedy Caesar's Fall (written with Michael Drayton, Thomas Dekker, Thomas Middleton and Anthony Munday), and a collaboration with Dekker Christmas Comes but Once a Year (1602).[6] With Dekker he also wrote Sir Thomas Wyatt, which was printed in 1607. He worked with Thomas Dekker again on 2 city comedies, Westward Ho in 1604 and Northward Ho in 1605.[3] He was the author of certain additions to Marston's tragi-comedy of The Malcontent (1604); these probably do not extend beyond the induction, a curious and vivacious prelude to a powerful and irregular work of somewhat morbid and sardonic genius.[5]
3 years later, in 1607, 2 comedies and a tragedy, "written by Thomas Dekker and John Webster," were given to the press. The comedies are lively and humorous, full of movement and incident; but the beautiful interlude of poetry which distinguishes the 2nd scene of the 4th act of Westward Ho! is unmistakably and unquestionably the work of Dekker; while the companion comedy of Northward Ho! is composed throughout of homespun and coarse-grained prose.name=eb28462>Swinburne 1911, 462.</ref>[5]
The Famous History of Sir Thomas Wyatt is apparently a most awkward and injurious abridgment of an historical play in 2 parts on a pathetic but undramatic subject, the fate of Lady Jane Grey. In this lost play of Lady Jane (noted by Henslow in 1602) Heywood, Dekker, Henry ChettleChettle and Smith had also taken part; so that even in its original form it can hardly have been other than a rough piece of patchwork. There are some touches of simple eloquence and rude dramatic abihty in the mangled and corrupt residue which is all that survives of it; but on the whole this "history" is crude, meagre, and unimpressive.[5]
Despite his ability to write comedy, Webster is best known for his 2 brooding English tragedies based on Italian sources. The White Devil, a retelling of the intrigues involving Vittoria Accoramboni, an Italian woman assassinated at the age of 28, was a failure when staged at the Red Bull Theatre in 1612 (published the same year), perhaps being too unusual and intellectual for its audience. The Duchess of Malfi, 1st performed by the King's Men about 1614 and published 9 years later, was more successful. He also wrote a play called Guise, based on French history, of which little else is known as no text has survived.[6]
The White Devil was performed in the Red Bull Theatre, an open-air theatre that is believed to have specialised in providing simple, escapist drama for a largely working class audience, a factor that might explain why Webster's highly intellectual and complex play was unpopular with its audience. In contrast, The Duchess of Malfi was probably performed by the King's Men in the smaller, indoor Blackfriars Theatre, where it would have played to a more highly educated audience that might have appreciated it better. The 2 plays would thus have been very different in their original performances. The White Devil would have been performed, probably in 1 continuous action, by adult actors, with elaborate stage effects a possibility. The Duchess of Malfi was performed in a controlled environment, with artificial lighting, and musical interludes between acts.[3]
Later plays[]
Webster wrote another play on his own: The Devil's Law Case (c. 1617–1619), a tragicomedy.
His later plays were collaborative city comedies: Anything for a Quiet Life (c. 1621), co-written with Thomas Middleton, and A Cure for a Cuckold (c. 1624), co-written with William Rowley. In 1624, he also co-wrote a topical play about a recent scandal, Keep the Widow Waking (with John Ford, Rowley and Dekker).[6] The play itself is lost, although its plot is known from a court case. He is believed to have contributed to the tragicomedy The Fair Maid of the Inn with John Fletcher, Ford, and Phillip Massinger. His Appius and Virginia, probably written with Thomas Heywood, is of uncertain date.[3]
He published in 1624 the city pageant for that year, "invented and written by John Webster, merchant-tailor."[5]
Thomas Heywood's Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels (licensed 7 November 1634) speaks of Webster in the past tense, implying he was then dead.[3]
Writing[]
The White Devil[]
In 1612 John Webster stood revealed to the then somewhat narrow world of readers as a tragic poet and dramatist of the very foremost rank in the very highest class. The White Devil, also known as Vittoria Corombona, is a tragedy based on events then comparatively recent — on a chronicle of crime and retribution in which the leading circumstances were altered and adapted with the most delicate art and the most consummate judgment from the incompleteness of a composite reality to the requisites of the stage of Shakespeare.[5]
By Shakespeare alone among English poets have the finest scenes and passages of this tragedy been ever surpassed or equalled in the crowning qualities of tragic or dramatic poetry — in pathos and passion, in subtlety and strength, in harmonious variety of art and infallible fidelity to nature.[5]
The Duchess of Malfi[]
11 years had elapsed when the twin masterpiece of its author — if not indeed a still greater or more absolute masterpiece — was published by the poet who had given it to the stage 7 years before. The Duchess of Malfy (an Anglicized version of Amalfi, corresponding to such designations as Florence, Venice and Naples) was probably brought on the stage about the time of the death of Shakespeare; it was printed in the memorable year which witnessed the publication of Shakespeare's collected plays.[5]
John Webster The Duchess of Malfi - Summary and Analysis
This tragedy stands out among its compeers as among the imperishable and ineradicable landmarks of literature. All the great qualities apparent in The White Devil reappear in The Duchess of Malfy, combined with a yet more perfect execution,[5] and utilized with a yet more consummate skill. No poet has ever so long and so successfully sustained at their utmost height and intensity the expressed emotions and the united effects of terror and pity.[7]
The transcendent imagination and the impassioned sympathy which inspire this most tragic of all tragedies save King Lear are fused together in the 4th act into a creation which has hardly been excelled for unflagging energy of impression and of pathos in all the dramatic or poetic literature of the world. Its wild and fearful sublimity of invention is not more exceptional than the exquisite justice and tenderness and subtlety of its expression.[7]
Miscellaneous[]
Some of the Duchess of Malfi's executive merits may be found in an ill-constructed and ill-conditioned tragi-comedy which was printed in the same year; but few readers will care to remember much more of The Devil's Law Case than the admirable scenes and passages which found favor in the unerring and untiring sight of Webster's 1st and final interpreter or commentator, Charles Lamb.[7] \ 31 years later (1634) the noble tragedy of Appius and Virginia was given to the world — a work which would alone have sufficed to perpetuate the memory of its author among all competent lovers of English poetry at its best.[7]
7 years afterwards (1641) an unprincipled and ignorant bookseller published, under the title of Two New Playcs: vis. A Cure for a Cuckold: a Comedy. The Thracian Wonder, A Comical History. As it hath been several times acted with great Applause, 2 plays of which he assigned the authorship to John Webster and William Rowley. This attribution may or may not be accurate; the former play is a mixture of coarsely realistic farce and gracefully romantic comedy.[7]
An elegy on Henry, prince of Wales, and a few slight occasional verses, compose the rest of Webster's remaining extant works.[7]
Critical reputation[]
While Webster's drama was generally dismissed in the 18th and 19th centuries, many 20th-century critics and theatregoers find The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi to be brilliant plays of great poetic quality and dark themes. In his poem "Whispers of Immortality," for example, T.S. Eliot memorably says that Webster always saw "the skull beneath the skin".[3]
A possible explanation for this change is that only after the horrors of war in the early 20th century could their desperate protagonists be portrayed on stage again, and understood.[3] W.A. Edwards wrote of Webster's plays in Scrutiny II (1933–4): "Events are not within control, nor are our human desires; let's snatch what comes and clutch it, fight our way out of tight corners, and meet the end without squealing." The violence and pessimism of Webster's tragedies have seemed to some analysts close to modern sensibilities.[8]
Recognition[]
3 of Webster's poems ("A Dirge," "The Shrouding of the Duchess of Malfi," and "Vanitas Vanitatum") were included in the Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900.[9]
In popular culture[]
- The 18th-century play The Fatal Secret by Lewis Theobald is a reworking of The Duchess of Malfi, imposing Aristotle's "unities" and a happy ending on the plot
- The short story "A Christmas in Padua" in F.L. Lucas's collectionThe Woman Clothed with the Sun (1937) retells the final hours of Vittoria Accoramboni (the original of Webster's White Devil) in December 1585, slanting the narrative from her perspective.
- The 1982 detective novel The Skull Beneath the Skin by P.D. James centres around an ageing actress who plans to play Webster's drama The Duchess of Malfi in a Victorian castle theatre. The novel takes its title from T.S. Eliot's famous characterisation of Webster's work in his poem "Whispers of Immortality".
- The song "My White Devil" from Echo & the Bunnymen's 1983 album Porcupine refers to Webster as "one of the best there was" and mentions his 2 tragic plays by name.
- Webster a play by Robert David McDonald, was written for and premiered at the Glasgow Citizens Theatre 1984
- A young John Webster, played by Joe Roberts, appears in the 1998 film Shakespeare in Love.
- A fragment of Scene Two, Act Four of The Duchess of Malfi is shown in the 1987 BBC TV film version of Agatha Christie's detective novel Sleeping Murder
- Webster's quote, "Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle: she died young", is used in the novel Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice, as well as in Sleeping Murder.
- Mike Figgis's 2001 film Hotel involves scenes from The Duchess of Malfi
- The antagonist in Paul Johnston's "The Death List" and "The Soul Collector" mimics The White Devil in character names and actions.
Publications[]
Poetry[]
- "A Monumental Column," in Three Elegies on the most lamented Death of Prince Henry (with Cyril Tourneur & Thomas Heywood). London: Nicholas Okes & Felix Kingston, for William Welbie, 1613.
Plays[]
- The White Devil. London: N.O., for Thomas Archer, 1612
- (edited by John Russell Brown). Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2012.
- The Tragedy of the Duchess of Malfi. London: Nicholas Oakes, for Iohn Waterson, 1623
- The Duchess of Malfi (edited by jackie S. Moore). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
- The Duchess of Malfi (edited by Leah S. Marcus). London: Methuen, 2008.
- Selected Plays (edited by Jonathan Dollimore & Alan Sinfield). Cambridge, UK, & New York:: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Collected editions[]
- Complete Works (edited by F.I. Lucas). London: Chatto & Windus, 1927; New York: Gordian Press, 1966.
- Works: An old-spelling critical edition (edited by D.C. Gunby, David Carnegie, & MacDonald P Jackson). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Vanitas Vanitatum by John Webster (read by Tom O'Bedlam)
Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[10]
See also[]
References[]
Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Webster, John". Encyclopædia Britannica. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 462-463. Swinburne. Wikisource, Web, Mar. 16, 2018.
Notes[]
- ↑ Forker, Charles (1995). Skull Beneath the Skin. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 0809312795.
- ↑ John William Cousin, "Webster, John," A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: Dent / New York: Dutton, 1910, 399. Wikisource, Web, Mar. 16, 2018.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 John Webster, Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation. Web, Sep. 4, 2011.
- ↑ Serafin, Steven; Myer, Valerie Grosvenor (2003). The Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature. Continuum. pp. 1032. ISBN 0826414564.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8 Swinburne 1911, 462.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Webster, John; Gunby, David; Carnegie, David; MacDonald P Jackson (2007). The Works of John Webster (An Old-Spelling Critical Edition ed.). Cambridge: University Press. ISBN 0521260619.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 Swinburne 1911, 463.
- ↑ Fernie, Ewan; Wray, Ramona; Thornton Burnett, Mark; McManus, Clare (31 March 2005). Reconceiving the Renaissance: A Critical Reader. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 163. ISBN 0199265577.
- ↑ Alphabetical list of authors: Shelley, Percy Bysshe to Yeats, William Butler, Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900 (edited by Arthur Quiller-Couch). Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1919. Bartleby.com, Web, May 19, 2012.
- ↑ Search results = au:John Webster, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, May 9, 2021.
External links[]
- Poems
- John Webster in the Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900 ("A Dirge," "The Shrouding of the Duchess of Malfi," "Vanitas Vanitatum").
- Webster, John (ca.1580-ca.1632) (4 poems) at Representative Poetry Online
- John Webster at AllPoetry (7 poems)
- John Webster at PoemHunter (10 poems)
- John Webster at Poetry Nook (11 poems)
- Books
- Works by John Webster at Project Gutenberg
- John Webster at Amazon.com
- About
- John Webster English dramatist in the Encyclopædia Britannica
- John Webster at NNDB
- Webster, John (1580?-1625) in the Dictionary of National Biography
- John Webster (1580?-1625?) at Luminarium.
- Algernon Swinburne's The Age of Shakespeare, "John Webster"
- John Webster at the Internet Movie Database
- John Webster at the Internet Broadway Database
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the 1911 Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.. Original article is at Webster, John
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