Intellectual and Cultural Context- Webster's Career

Webster's Career 

Webster was born around 1579, he was from a comfortable middle class background as his father was a prosperous coach maker. As a result Webster would have encountered a 'cross section of Elizabethan society as he grew up'. 

                                       

His father was also a member of a prestigious guild, Company of Merchant Taylors so it's very likely that Webster attended the Merchant Taylors' School. Boys of the school had a good reputation as an acting troupe. The rest of his education was probably completed at Middle Temple where he would have trained in the legal profession hence the recurring theme of Law and its corruption in his plays. 

                   
                                

The theatre had flourished as Webster progressed in his career. 'The Theatre'  was built in 1576. It is not known exactly when Webster stepped into this burgeoning industry (The fuck do we know about him then?). But by 1602 he was firmly entrenched as a regular collaborative dramatist. Phillip Henslowe lists Webster as a co-author of 3 plays for The Rose Theatre.



                                          


Webster's earlier plays were satirical portraits of contemporary middle-class London life, drawing on Webster's own background. The influence of city comedy on Webster's tragedies, while faint, can nonetheless can be traced in scenes such as Flamineo's orchestration of his master's extra-marital affair in The White Devil. 

But The White Devil was not well-received upon its first performances. His preface is the definition of pressed. The rush to the play into publication indictates that he thought the play would've had greater success as a piece of literature. He published 'A Monumental Column' an elegy for the death of Prince Henry, in 1612.

The Duchess of Malfi was performed by the King's Men at the indoor Blackfriars and the outdoor Globe. Webster did not return to single-authored plays after The White Devil, probs cause everyone thought it was shite.


                                        

There is no record of Webster's death but he is referred to in the past tense in Heywood's Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels, in 1634, which implies that he was hella dead. 

Jacobean Tragedy 

The White Devil is advertised on its title page as a 'Tragedy'. During the Jacobean age, tragedy was very popular.

One of the most influential and earliest definitions is from the philosopher Aristotle who described it as 'an imitation of an action that is serious, complete and of a certain magnitude' and identified several key components of a tragic plot- hamartia, anagonrisis and peripeteia.

The chorus in Aeschylus' play Agamenon sums up the conclusion of dramatic tragedy: "Men shall learn wisdom by affliction schooled."

                            



Well known tragedies such as King Lear, Macbeth and Othello features heroes who make great errors of judgement in the first act of the play only to realise their mistakes too late.  Webster's Flamineo and Vittoria can be seen as protagonists in the same mould yet they choose a sinful path in Act 1 and seem to reach comfort and security in Act V but only right at the end do they realise their actions have brought about their ruin.

                                  

There is a strong ethical dimension to this pattern as it seems to be giving instructions to the audience. Thomas Heywood (Webster's co-author) concluded that the moral of the tragedy was to "to persuade men to humanity and good life.... showing them the fruits of honesty and the end of villainy."
Protagonist of The Revenger's Tragedy remarks: "When the bad bleeds, then is the tragedy good."

But good and bad are elastic categories.The laws of God and the laws of the state were officially one and the same in Jacobean England- as James I remarked in a speech
"to dispute what God may do is blasphemy,,, so is it sedition in subjects to dispute what a king may do in the height of his power." - Divine Right of Kings 

                             
                           

Many Jacobean tragedies illustrate the dangerous consequences of abandoning the laws of the state and God.
Macbeth - murders the king
Lear- abdicating flouts the established order

Flamineo and Vittoria willfully reject traditional morality in order to advance themselves + they pay the ultimate price. John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore' expresses the principle of divine retribution suggesting that though "Great men may do their wills... Heaven will judge them for't another day."
Sin against the prevailing social order, these tragedies seem to say you will suffer the consequences both in this life and the next.

                          



But many tragedies of the period contain potentially subversive challenges to the social status quo.
Doctor Faustus and Tis Pity She's a Whore depict sympathetic athetist characters whilst The Duchess of Malfi illustrates that true nobility is in a person's actions, not their birth.

Tragedy must offer the possibility of subversion. 'The White Devil' is a revenge tragedy inspired by tragedies from Roman playwright, Seneca. Which developed a tragic form which focused on the private revenge of a protagonist who had been the victim of a terrible injustice. The most famous example is The Spanish Tragedy (Thomas Kyd) which was a mix of political intrigue, ghostly visitations, plotting, madness and bloody recrimination.
J.W. Lever described this format as 'a wide range of characters , a court setting, a dynamic of complicated intrigue and delayed revenge, with a final spectacular catastrophe."

                                        


Revenge tragedy is different to classical tragedy as the revenger experiences no anagnorisis- tends to be determined to fulfill his vengeful mission until the bloody end. But the protagonists' hamartia could be the very willingness to take up the call to revenge. So revenge tragedy presents its audience with a thorny moral ambiguity. Torn between private honour and public law.

Francis Bacon in his essay 'Of Revenge' in 1597
"Revenge is a wild kind of justice which the man's nature runs to, the more ought the law to weed it out."
The revenger is caught between irreconcilable values

• Honour bound to avenge
• Christian morality dictates that he should not commit murder. 

                               

                                    

Renaissance tragedy is bare graphic in its presentation of death and violence. Gruesome physical images of widspread as well as images of cruelty. The effect of all this brutality on stage is often to paint a bleak portrait of human society. 

• King Lear famously asks of the 'poor, bare, forked animal' he sees before him 'Is man no more than this?'
• Tis Pity She's a Whore' emphaises a similar view- man is described as a 'wretch, a worm, a nothing.'
• Iago in 'Othello' refers to humans in terms of animal imagery which is also seen in The White Devil which is loaded with images of human beings as animals or birds

Central figure in Jacobean drama is the 'malcontent', A man who is born into high social status who as somehow lost his position and has become educated but an impoverished outsider. His outsider stats leads him at once both to desire social advancement and to disdain the system which continues to exclude him

                             

Vittoria Accoramboni vs. The White Devil

Based on the history of Vittoria Accoromboni although Webster significantly deviates from the published accounts. The White Devil is based on real occurrences in Italy barely 30 years before Webster wrote the play.

The events took place between 1576 and 1585 + was widely reported.

Born in 1557 at Gubbio, a small town in Tuscany. Her family was aristocratic but poor + moved to Rome to improve her fortunes.

She was a great beauty, full of charm and gaiety and despite her modest dowry she married Francesco Peretti, nephew to the powerful Cardinal Montalto in Rome when she 16 yrs.
About 7 yrs later she met  Paulo Giordano Orsinin (Duke of Bracciano) and became his lover, partly through the determined efforts of her ambitious mother and her scheming brother Marcello who was in his service.

                                             


The duke was 20 yrs older, physically obese and already married to Isabella de Medici, sister of the Grand Duke of Tuscany and was the father of 3 children. Isabella, however, was having an affair with a relative of her husband's Trolio Orsini.

Isabella's brother arranged the death of Trolio Orsini and either her brother or her husband arranged for Isabella to meet her own death. Marcello shot Peretti in a deserted alley leaving Bracciano and Vittoria free to marry.

Pope Gregory XIII ordered the couple to separate and while an inquiry into Peretti's death was held, Vittoria was imprisoned in the Castello San Angelo in Rome. The investigations revealed nothing and Vittoria was released.

She and Bracciano married for a 2nd time and lived together on his ancestral estates. Pope continued his disapproval of the union and when he died 4 yrs later they celebrated with a 3rd wedding in public only to learn that Cardinal Montalto has been elected as the new popr, Sixtus V.

They fled to Venice and then to Padua. But the Duke was seriously ill, he suffered from a leg ulcer and died by Lake Garda in 1585. Vittoria attempted suicide but failed and returned to Padua where Isabella's family saw her as a threat to Isabella's son Virgino's inheritance.

They hired Lodovico Orsini a banished kinsman of the duke, to kill Vittoria and her younger brother Flamineo. Lodovico was later captured and strangled and his accomplices publicly executed, The Duke of Florence died 2 yrs later most likely from poison and Marcello was extradited to Ancona where he was beheade.

Changes between The White Devil and the Source Material 
                         
                           

• Vittoria is an innocent by stander in the historical source- Brachiano seems to force her into this marriage whilst all the murderous actions seems to stem from him. But in 'The White Devil' Vittoria seems to be more complicit in the murders as shown in 1.2 where she dreams of both Camillo and Isabella being murdered. 

• Webster chooses to make Isabella live longer and presents her as a more saintlier character. Her love for Brachiano remains no matter how many times he is a piece of shit towards her. She is killed by kissing the poison on her husband's portrait - metaphor of their marriage. But in the historical context she is murdered by either her brother or husband . Whilst in historical context Isabella was having an affair with Trolio Orisini and she is killed off pretty quickly

• Source material her mother is seen as scheming as Flamineo. But in 'The White Devil' she is disgusted and accuses Brachiano and Vittoria of adultery.She foretells them that this adultery will lead to their early deaths. 

• Vittoria was born in Gubbio, a small town in Tuscany rather than Venice as  Monticelso claims 

• In 'The White Devil' both Vittoria and Bracciano are seen as scheming whilst in the the historical source only Brachiano is seen as truly evil. 

• Vittoria meets Brachiano 7 years after she gets married and keeps rejecting him but in 'The White Devil' it seems instantaneous 

• After being implicated for the murder of her husband in 'The White Devil' she is sent to a nunnery whilst in the historical context she is placed into a prison. 

• More important, he has almost entirely invented the character of Flamineo, for the manuscripts carry little more than a passing reference to a person of that name. Whereas, in 'The White Devil', Flamineo is seen as the chief instigator of all the violence and is almost seen as a conductor as he orchestrates all the vile situations and manipulates people.  

INTELLECTUAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXT

Fugger newsletter clearly the source of TWD. It was a newspaper circulated to clients of the German bank, or A Letter Lately Written from Rome which translated into English in 1585. Webster clearly adds:

• Vittoria recounting of her dream - means of manipulating B
• Trial and subsequent imprisonment of V in the house of convertites
• Manner of B death
• Marcello's murder
• Cornelia's madness
• Appearances of ghosts
• Historical Vittoria appears to be completely innocent- far cry from Venetian Curtizan 

The Murder of Signora Accaramboni 

Described as a 'pitiful act of murder' which occurred in 1585, Padua. Duke Paolo Giordano Orsini was one of the noblest Roman families and was married to the sister of the reigning Duke of Florence. But his lust for Vittoria meant that he desired to break his marriage vows.

• He had a 'burning passion' for the wife of the nephew of Pope Sixtus- but she did not wish to turn unfaithful. 
• The Duke then murdered Vittoria's husband. He asked her again but she curtly refused
• Duke then murdered his own spouse so she was 'put out of the way'.
• Marcello (V brother) acts as a go between  
• 3rd time he addressed, she finally said yes but on the condition that he would marry her. She wasn't going to be his mistress of whore. 
• The Cardinal (present pope) did not rest the desire to avenge the blood of his innocent nephew, When he became the Duke he wanted to reconcile. He knelt before him and begged for forgiveness. 
• Duke then removed himself and Vittoria to Padua (Venetian territory)
• Before 2 months passed he died at Salo- foul play was suspected
• He left Vittoria a large property. But the Duke of Florence was hella pissed + took charge of Giovanni's place in the will
• The Duke of Florence urged her to enter a convent but she refused + decided to keep the retinue of 100 people
• 50 armed men entered her home + shot her brother, Duke Flaminio and stabbed Vittoria during prayer
• One of these men were Ludovico Orsini, cousin of Paolo Giordano 
• Ludovico was to be strangled 3 hrs after the delivery of their letter who admitted that he had perpetrated this murder at the command of great personages  
• 3 hours after the decision was reached LO was sentenced to death. He had murdered 40 people but never thought justice would lay a hand upon him due to his elevated social status and hoped he would not be publicly executed. 
• He was to be strangled in a chamber-  "And just as high as the house of Orsini had stood in high esteem, as deep is now its fall"
• The two servants of Vittoria who opened her dwelling were accomplices and were burned with red hot tongs, killed with a hammer and then quartered.