Jacobean Revenge Tragedy Lesson 17 LO: To explore the themes in Act 3, Scene 4 and Act 3, Scene 5. To analyse as we read

Who said what? Quote quiz http://www.shmoop.com/the-duchess-of-malfi/quotes-quiz.html

Class analysis Stage directions 1 Pilgrim 2 Pilgrim Duchess Antonio Bosola Cariola Today you will analyse as we are reading. Whilst reading underline any significant words/phrases. We will discuss once we have read a few pages. Extra challenge: Also think about any links between the plays and the poems.

Summary We're at Loretto, where Bosola advised the Duchess travel, watching two pilgrims as they watch the Cardinal undergo the ceremony for transforming into a soldier. They continue to watch as the Duchess, Antonio, and their children are brought forward and banished from Ancona by the Cardinal. The pilgrims muse that Cardinal is being too harsh.

Question Given that the Duchess is a prince, how can anybody banish her? Since Ancona is one of the papal states, the Cardinal, as a representative of the Catholic church, can go to the Pope, claiming that the Duchess is sinful and have her banished. The pilgrims still think this is unjust, especially when he ripps off her wedding ring. Consider the reaction of audiences through time

Critical View The Duchess of Malfi, like The White Devil, is one of those Italian stories, full of hatred, wrath and wickedness, of which the Elizabethans were so fond. The heroine, however, is a very different figure from Vittoria and far more winning. Vittoria, if I read her rightly, is impatient of the simple joys of humble life, is full of ambition, of restless desire for power, for glory, for adoration. The Duchess, on the other hand, has tasted all the sweet of earthly grandeur, is born to it and feels its emptiness, has lived with it and has known the sad satiety it brings. The truer, simpler life of woman: a husband to worship, children to love and rear: these are what she would wish for herself, if the choice were hers. And so, all through the play, we feel in her the tragedy of a life "out of suits with fortune", as truly as if she were poor and longed in vain for wealth and splendor that could never be hers. She is the victim of a cruel and hopeless fatality, which pursues her relentlessly to the very end. The women of webster and middleton

Homework Collect evidence from the play to support and refute the opinion expressed by Gamaliel Bradford in The Sewanee Review. The Duchess is the victim of a cruel and hopeless fatality, which pursues her relentlessly to the very end. The Women of Middleton and Webster Author(s): Gamaliel Bradford Source: The Sewanee Review, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Jan., 1921), pp. 14-29 Is this a view expressed in the poetry of Rossetti?