Literary Analysis Paper

Proto-feminism and the Duchess of Malfi

Whether the spirit of greatness or of woman

Reign most in her, I know not; but it shows

A fearful madness: I owe her much of pity

            This line, from The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster, is spoken by Cariola, the Duchess’s handmaiden. Cariola has just witnessed the Duchess promise to her brother, Ferdinand, to never wed again. As soon as Ferdinand exits, the Duchess beguiles Antonio, a lowly steward, into marrying her. Cariola is impressed by the Duchess’s bold deceit and seemingly unclouded conscience. Although she is impressed, she also knows that the Duchess is acting far outside the cultural norms for women in early modern England. Therefore, Cariola has difficulty in understanding and categorizing the Duchess. Does her boldness make her great? Perhaps, but greatness is not a state traditionally available to women. It is not a state that even comes near to being chaste, silent, shamefast, and obedient – the idyllic qualities of womanhood in England up until this point in history (Bartels 1). The other option is that it is her woman-ness – her inherently flawed and deceptive and “sexually insatiable (Henderson 30)” nature - that is responsible for her boldness.

But we know that this is not a simple morality play. The Duchess is a character far too complicated and humanized and attractive to be boxed into just one of these categories. Cariola can see the Duchess’s greatness in her refusal to give up her desires, but can also see the great trespass the Duchess is committing in her decisions. Unable to understand the Duchess, Cariola can only conclude that “it shows a fearful madness.”

“A fearful madness” is exactly what was going on in Renaissance England. Given that the role of women was shifting and being questioned, and that the “fact of female gender cuts across all other social, economic, or class distinctions (Henderson 24),” one can assume that almost every realm within human culture was in flux during this period. Fearful madness indeed. For the first time in history, women were publishing in defense of themselves (Henderson). And just as the fictional Cariola has difficulty in understanding a woman who is pushing the boundaries of acceptable behavior, the real women of the period who were pushing the boundaries often seemed to have trouble understanding themselves. Jane Anger (a pseudonym for an English gentlewoman (Bartels 1) wrote a passionate defense of women in her proto-feminist pamphlet “Protection for Women” (1589) which she opened with a letter to the Gentlewomen of England in which “for [her] presumption [she] crave[s] pardon.” Instead of fully committing to her defense, Anger undermines some of her authority within the first few lines.

Were the shackles of oppression too ingrained in women to be able to fully “inhabit their own subjectivity? (Bartels 1)” Closer examination of primary texts from the period suggest that it perhaps has less to do with women being unable or unwilling to fully commit to their agency and individual identity, and more to do with a “tradition of representation in which rebellious, outspoken, or desiring women habitually end up married, muted, or dead (Bartels 1).” Therefore, perhaps women of the period, when placing their radical and dangerous ideas into the eye of the public and of the crown, softened their heretical words with feminine modesty and apology. We see this strategy work for the Duchess as well. Throughout most of the play, the Duchess manages to dance around her brother, denying that she is married, appearing to agree with his orders. Years pass and the Duchess bears three children before she admits to Ferdinand that she is married. The Duchess’s “visible compliance (Bartels 4)” allows her, at least for a few years, to live the life that she wants. In the same way that Anger softened her radicalism to remain somewhat tolerable to those in power, the Duchess is able to “speak out through, rather than against, established postures and make room for self-expression within self-suppressing roles (Bartels 3).”

Why might not I marry?

I have not gone about in this to create

Any new world or custom

The Duchess speaks these lines to Ferdinand, once she can no longer hide the fact that she is married. At times throughout the play, the Duchess appears to be a feminist hero. At other times, she seems to be only interested in satisfying her personal desires and needs, not particularly interested in whose political agenda her actions support or do not support. However, Webster, by making the character of the Duchess rich, complex, possessing of a full emotional spectrum, intelligent, and therefore as human as any man, is giving huge power to women because the audience is intimate with her character. In discussing the pamphlet attacks upon women in early modern England, Henderson says, “all the pamphlets assume such a grouping; the frequent use of argument by example testifies to the habit of moving immediately from the specific to the general, from the individual to the sex as a whole (Henderson 26).” Robbing women of individuality, it becomes easy to rob them of humanity as well. The character of Bosola does this often. Upon coming across a random old woman wearing makeup, Bosola says, “I would sooner eat a dead pigeon taken from the soles of the feet of one sick of the plague than kiss one of you fasting. . . I do wonder you do not loathe yourselves. To which the old woman replies, You are still abusing women! And Bosola says, No; only by the way now and then mention your frailties . . . the devil takes delight to hang at a woman’s girdle. . .

Webster reverses the process of going from the specific to the general with his portrayal of the Duchess. We see the Duchess searching for not only the fulfillment of her sexual desires but life-long companionship as well. We see her fight to assert the vision she has for her life, which does not cause harm to anybody, beneath an oppressive, vindictive, and outrageously violent patriarch. By writing a play in which the audience becomes intimate with the specifics and particularities of the Duchess, and not the generalities of women, Webster gives agency and humanity to all women.

In Mary Tattlewell’s The Women’s Sharp Revenge, she states that women should be judged by those around them, her “ Sovereigns and Subjects, Court, City, Camp, and Country, . . . the Virgins, the Vestals, the Wives, the Widows, the Country wench, the Countess, the Laundress, the Lady, the Maid-Marion, the Matron, ,even from the Shepherdess to the Scepter.” Henderson states that all pamphlets, both attacks and defenses, categorize the sex as a whole and resist invoking the individual woman (Henderson 26). And, ultimately, the Duchess is subject to those around her, and dies for her refusal to adhere to the rigid, misogynistic demands of Ferdinand.

What is remarkable about the Duchess’s death is that it is not a defeat. When she knows that she can no longer fool the men into her life into allowing her to live the subversive life that she desires, she does not acquiesce, she does not attempt to save her life. She says,

I account this world a tedious theater,

For I do play a part in’t ‘gainst my will

While the Duchess is imprisoned, Bosola says that

            Her melancholy seems to be fortified

            With a strange disdain.

            The Duchess does not stop asserting herself. Although she loses her “visible compliance,”

and therefore her license to lead the life that she wishes, she is Duchess of Malfi still. She is fortified by the strength of her refusal to compromise.  The audience is left questioning the rigid gender roles in their own society and those oppressed by these roles. The Duchess of Malfi is a text that is indicative of the turbulent period of Renaissance England. It is a text that belongs alongside the women who were writing in defense of themselves, and beckons in a new era of gender equality.

Works Cited

Anger, Jane. “Jane Anger, her Protection for Women.” c. 1589 in Half Humankind: Contexts and Texts of the Controversy about Women in England, 1540-1640. Urbana: U of Illinois, 1985. 171-88. Print.

Bartels, Emily C. "Strategies Of Submission: Desdemona, The Duchess, And The Assertion Of Desire." Studies In English Literature (Rice) 36.2 (1996): 417. Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.

Henderson, Katherine U., and Barbara F. McManus. Half Humankind: Contexts and Texts of the   Controversy about Women in England, 1540-1640. Urbana: U of Illinois, 1985. Print.

Tattlewell, Mary. “The women’s sharp revenge.” c. 1640 in Half Humankind: Contexts and Tets of the Controversy about Women in England, 1540-1640. Urbana: U of Illinois, 1985. 305-27. Print.

Primary Text #3 ~ Hic Mulier

Hic Mulier was a pamphlet that was the outcome of King James expressing his disdain and dislike for women dressing in men's clothing, or for women attempting to have a more sexualized style at all. He tells his clergy to teach against the "insolence of our women," urging them not to wear things that have been deemed in style (like stilettoes or short hair or broad brimmed hats). During the Jacobean period (the reign of King James) women were accused of aligning themselves too much with masculine behavior, changing their dress and social routines so that they appeared more masculine. The number of women who participated in transvestism was small and the interest in this topic was brief, disappearing after King James died. This pamphlet argues that transvestism is an insult to the natural order of things, including natural hierarchy within society, the natural hierarchy within the Bible, and the hierarchy of the natural world. This pamphlet is significant because it expresses a masculine reaction of fear to a changing gender landscape. The violent response of King James to suppress women from dressing the way they wish to is a reaction to the wave of proto-feminism that has been engendered through the pamphlet wars.

Primary Text #2 ~ The Arraignment of lewd, idle, forward ,and inconstant women by Joseph Swetnam

This pamphlet was extremely popular. In it, Joseph Swetnam attacked women, mainly using biblical references and sexist humor. Swetnam is writing for males, and warns men, especially young men, of ever getting married. He interprets the Garden of Eden scene in the Bible as irrefutable proof that women are the (much) worse sex, and that essentially as soon as God created woman she worked to bring about the downfall of man. Swetnam cites his own experience with women, many different Biblical figures, and figures from the classics and the canon. This pamphlet is perhaps most significant because it received such an enormous response. It was responded to by three women writers: Rachel Speght, Esther Sowernam, and Constantia Munda. Swetnam's pamphlet was reprinted many times, and is suspected to be so popular largely due to its middle class styl

e humor.

Primary Text #1 ~ Jane Anger, her Protection for Women

This text was a pamphlet written in response to Thomas Orwin's, "Book His Surfeit in Love." This book was full of misogynistic claims that discussed how men could get sick from indulging themselves in the sensual pleasures of women. The pamphlet that Anger wrote in response gave women a new voice, one that was actually angry, and one that openly debated female sexuality instead of accepting the norm for females being sexually insatiable and lusty. She discusses how men will use rhetoric and their own ignorance of women to twist events and stories to show how lustful women are, and how their charms and guile make men sick. Anger continues to mock masculinity, going so far as to criticize the masculine form of writing, which she says lacks real content and is all about show. Furthermore, Anger argues that it is actually men's own "filthy lust" which makes them project lustiness and infidelity onto women. This pamphlet is significant because it is one of the most outspoken pamphlets written by a woman, it is angry (a voice previously denied and untried by a woman publisher), and it specifically attacks men's views on female sexuality.

Paradise Lost

Hail horrors, hail
Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell
Receive thy new possessor: one who brings 
A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n

In this passage, Milton seems to be making Heaven and Hell rather arbitrary. If it's just how the mind perceives something, then what is truth? What does being good mean you must strive for? Through out Paradise Lost Milton keeps showing the reader instances where things are not what they seemed.

For example, Satan is traditionally the epitome of evil, but in this work he's seen as oppressed and rebelling against a tyrant. Eve is traditionally the weaker, more emotional one, yet she reasons at a higher level than Adam. Her choices, even her choice to eat the fruit, are incredibly understandable to us. Eve and Adam are traditionally seen as very different people, with very different roles as ordained to them by God, yet Milton stresses that it's just their hair that are really different from each other.

In attempting to out do the Bible, in attempting to explain to us the acts of God, I find that Milton crafts a story where the people never really stand a chance, where if we are to believe that God is just we cannot try to find reasons that God is just - because those things won't match up if (as I believe Milton intended) we can find compassion for Adam, for Eve, and perhaps even most for Satan.

Paradise Lost ~ the best state of humanity

Thus early, thus alone; her heav'nly form
Angelic, but more soft, and feminine,
Her graceful innocence, her every air
Of gesture or least action overawed
His malice, and with rapine sweet bereaved
His fierceness of the fierce intent it brought:
That space the Evil One abstracted stood
From his own evil, and for the time remained
Stupidly good, of enmity disarmed,
Of guile, of hate, of envy, of revenge;
But the hot hell that always in him burns,
though in mid-Heav'n, soon ended his delight,
And tortures him now more, the more he sees
Of pleasure not for him ordained: then soon
Fierce hate he recollects . . .

This is a shocking, dynamic passage containing language that, as we have been discussing in class, is tearing the text apart, and presenting Satan with an intimacy that the Bible never reaches.

The passage begins by describing Eve's beauty overpowering the evil intent of Satan. Milton could have described this happening in many different ways, but he chose to focus on the psyche of Satan. Milto says that the "Evil One" (a name suggesting no room for anything but evil) becoming abstracted from the very thing which we usually believe to be the essence of Satan's identity - evil. I'm also curious about how Milton does not say that Satan becomes abstracted from evil, but that Satan becomes abstracted from his own evil. Again, Satan is understandable and humanized - he has personal demons riding him as well! In this passage, Satan is not portrayed as Evil Itself, but he appears to be an unlucky, miserable, childish conduit for evil. If Eve's effect on Satan is able to abstract him from his own evil, could he not be redeemable? Portraying Satan this way does make Milton's God seem like a harsh one.

Next, Milton describes this abstraction as making Satan "stupidly good." It seems for the moment that seeing Eve has restored his own innocence. The word choice is also especially interestingly here. If Satan for a moment is separated from his evil by being stupefied, and by being made stupid, is intellect an evil thing? Is the best, most pure, most un-fallen state of humanity one of being "stupidly good?" Yet this is the thing that Eve also questions through out the piece. She wants to know more and to act more than just live according to the virtue of obedience to God.

The last lines of this passage remind me of the later scene, after Eve has eaten the fruit and when she is contemplating what to tell Adam. In the same way that Satan returns to evil contemplating the things that he cannot have (pleasure not for him ordained), Eve reveals her own evil because she cannot bear the thought of Adam partaking in pleasures that she cannot.

The Roaring Girl

PROLOGUE: A play expected long makes the audience look 
For wonders, that each scene should be a book, 
Composed to all perfection. Each one comes 
And brings a play in's head with him; up he sums 
What he would of a roaring girl have writ; 
If that he finds not here, he mews at it.
 Only we entreat you think our scene
 Cannot speak high, the subject being but mean.
 A roaring girl (whose notes till now never were)
 Shall fill with laughter our vast theater;
That's all which I dare promise. Tragic passion 
And such grave stuff is this day out of fashion. 
I see Attention sets wide ope her gates 
Of hearing, and with covetous list'ning waits
To know what girl this roaring girl should be, 
For of that tribe are many. One is she 
That roars at midnight in deep tavern bowls, 
That beats the watch, and constables controls; 
Another roars i'th'daytime, swears, stabs, gives braves,
Yet sells her soul to the lust of fools and slaves.
 Both these are suburb roarers.Then there's besides 
A civil city roaring girl, whose pride, 
Feasting, and riding, shakes her husband's state,
 And leaves him roaring through an iron grate.
 None of these roaring girls is ours: she flies 
With wings more lofty. Thus her character lies.
 Yet what need characters, when to give a guess 
Is better than the person to express?
But would you know who 'tis? Would you hear her name?
She is called Mad Moll; her life our acts proclaim.

The prologue to The Roaring Girl by Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker quickly engages with the reader because it identifies itself as a work that is out of the ordinary. The first few lines of the prologue acknowledge that every person in the audience is coming to the play with a set of expectations and a set of opinions about what a "roaring girl" is. It also subtly criticizes people's tendencies to make fun of (or, "mew") the things that they do not understand, simply because he/she does not have a structure ready to understand it.

The prologue then continues to discuss the ready made molds that society have made for somebody called a "roaring girl." It brings up women who are drunks, women who make trouble with the police, women who are whores, and women who abuse their husbands and use all their money. The play stresses that "none of these roaring girls is ours: she flies with wings more lofty." Immediately the audience knows that this roaring girl is not only nothing that's ever been seen before, therefore they do not yet know how to categorize her, but that she is a woman of character. And that despite the earlier lines which tell the reader to not take the play too seriously and that the theatre will be filled with laughter (Tragic passion and such grave stuff is this day out of fashion), it does not suggest that the roaring girl herself will be the object of humor and comedy. The prologue immediately sets up the Roaring Girl to be taken as a serious character.

The Witch of Edmonton

And why on me? Why should the envious world
Throw all their scandalous malice upon me?
'Cause I am poor, deformed and ignorant,
And like a bow buckled and bent together
By some more strong in mischiefs than myself
Must I for that be made a common sink
For all the filth and rubbish of men's tongues
To fall and run into? Some call me witch,
And, being ignorant of myself, they go
About to teach me how to be one, urging
That my bad tongue, by their bad usage made so,
Forspeaks their cattle, doth bewitch their corn,
Themselves, their servants and their babes at nurse

This is my favorite passage in the play, because of its powerful, complicated language and striking characterization of Elizabeth Sawyer.

Elizabeth compares herself to a sink, or a vessel that must catch the dirtiest parts of society. She is poor, destitute, old, ugly, and uneducated. She is at the bottom of society, and her lack of power and any attractive quality makes her an easy scapegoat. It makes her easy to be made into a monster. Yet Elizabeth is no monster and she is no witch. She only becomes one (and not a particularly fearsome one compared to the monsters that the characters around her become) after she is accused and conjured into one by her society.

The playwrights are making complicated comments upon what the power of truth and perception within society. In the same way that the townspeople conjure Elizabeth Sawyer into becoming a witch (and, being ignorant of myself, they go about to teach me how to be one ), Elizabeth conjures the devil dog into being, causing mischief among the townsfolk. The devil-dog plays a part in Frank's murder of Susan, but given Frank's characterization that we see before this event unfolds, we get the sense that incompetent, fickle Frank acted in part of his own volition.

What is believed to be true may become true. Elizabeth is believed to be a witch, and due to these abstractions of human thought (so easily changed and negotiated around human motivation/ego/fear), suffers the very real penalty of death. Societal truths are arbitrary truths, yet people may die because of their existence. They get their power from people believing in their truth.

Therefore, the authors seem to be saying three things: an element of the supernatural shapes our world, social perceptions founded on nothing concrete shape our world, and free will shapes our world as well.

Following is a list of my reflections on the monsters that we conjure today.

~post 9/11 Islamophobia
~successful, independent, intelligent women
~particular body types
~mental illness

This play and my reflections about fear's role in our current society make me seek wisdom. Seek the wisdom to not act out because I fear change, seek the wisdom to understand the position and humanity of those at the bottom of our society. I want to find this wisdom because although the face and name of the witch has changed, as a culture we are still often conjuring one.

Islamophobia

body shaming

Ferdinand in Duchess of Malfi needed more compassion for the mentally ill. In this time period, mad, insane people were viewed as funny and a source of entertainment.

Arden of Faversham

Alice is constantly going back on her word, always lying quickly and easily to Arden. She even goes so far as to manipulate the man into thinking her public misconduct with Mosby is meaningless and that it is Arden's own insecurities that are coloring his perception of the situation.

In this time period (1590's), traditions are collapsing and social institutions are redefining themselves. The Catholic Church is no longer the only church. Questions about the power and identity of women surface when Queen Elizabeth takes the throne. Common lands become private property. The rise of the middle class creates more complicated ideas and fears about social status. Public, social institutions like marriage undergo change as well. The value of one's word is less binding.

But why is this change so feared? Maybe people believed that once an overarching dominant power structure was broken, people could not function, people would go crazy. Wives would constantly plot the untimely demise of their husbands.

I had a professor once who discussed a trip he took to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. He was looking at an exhibit that chronicled the history of art in the western world. He said it was fascinating that one could clearly see the dominating power/ideal/thought or thing that most people aspired to during that time period, demonstrated through the painting. At one point all the paintings were extremely religious. At another it was all about Victorian decadence and lavishness. At another it was all war propaganda. Until he got to the present day, "modern art" section. This section was full of abstract art with a "disembodied feel" that, when placed next to its clear and understandable predecessors, was just difficult to make any sense of.

In an increasingly globalized world that also glorifies individuality, the lines between culture and race and social status and job title are becoming increasingly complex and difficult to compare. Catholicism and monarchy no longer dominate the world powers. Marriage is no longer a public institution. The definitions of what and who make a family have changed. Could the disjointed-ness and lack of coherency that my professor mentioned in modern art be reflecting the sense of groundless-ness of our modern time? Could our current society be what those who lived in 1592 have feared most? Do people go crazy without a clear hierarchy and established role within a family, social community, and work guild? This is a difficult question to answer.

We've brought up in class the point that although we tend to think of earlier time periods as more barbaric than our modern day, perhaps we are not so different. Although public executions are much more rare now than they were in 1592, our weapons of mass destruction are a monster that those living in the Renaissance couldn't even imagine.

Although we value our individuality and freedom of choice, could the lack of a dominating tradition/religion take away from our sense of community and connectedness? And if so, could this be correlated to a rise in mental illness and violent crime ( like murdering your husband)?

Are people less violent in a secular democracy than in a feudal society?

Is hierarchy part of the human condition?

Arden of Faversham is a play that highlights the actions of people prompted by fear and prompted by the uprooting of tradition. It's critical focus on human folly forces the audience to examine the social constructs that forged much of their identity, the dismantling of these constructs and its effects on identity, and, on an existential note, what, if anything, was ever a steadfast part of their identity?

The Duchess of Malfi ~ Bosola

Bosola is a complicated character in this play. Through out the text, he condemns humanity, ignoring the active role that he plays in bringing tragedy to the people around him. He sees himself as having no choice but to engage in behavior that brings about the deaths of Cariola, Antonio's children, and the Duchess - spying for Ferdinand, lying to Antonio and the Duchess. It is clear to the reader that Bosola has a choice to engage in this behavior, and that he is not coerced. Bosola's view on the human condition is pontificated in the excerpt below, when Bosola comes to tell the Duchess she is about to die.

Thou art a box of worm-seed, at best but a salvatory of green mummy. What's this flesh? A little crudded milk, fantastical puff paste. Our bodies are weaker than those paper prisons boys use to keep flies in, more contemptible, since ours is to preserve earthworms. Didst thou ever see a lark in a cage? Such is the soul in the body: this world is like her little turf of grass, and the heaven o'er our heads, like her looking glass, only gives us miserable knowledge of the small compass of our prison.

In this passage, it is important to recognize that Bosola isn't just degrading the Duchess. By the fourth sentence of the passage he begins to use the word "our." He encompasses himself and all other people into this dismal perspective on life. He relinquishes responsibility for his life, and the critical eye for the culture around him and the self-awareness that he possesses does not engender Bosola to act as an agent of change in the Duchess's fate, as it might someone else who was less of a cynic.

I'm currently reading Soul of a Citizen by Paul Rogat Loeb, and the character of Bosola reminds me of this passage;

It may always feel more than a little absurd to think that we might be able to change history. Recognizing that fact, and appreciating the irony in our situation, can be useful, especially when our efforts don't go as planned. But that same sense of irony becomes dangerous when it's used to justify passivity. As the poet and essayist Lewis Hyde points out, it becomes "the voice of the trapped who have come to enjoy their cage." Accordingly, we might think of a modern cynic as someone who's given up all hope of finding a door, much less a key. And we might remember that there are better ways to live.

I do think Bosola had come to enjoy his figurative cage of cynicism until two very distinct parts in the text. The first is when Bosola questions Ferdinand on why the children needed to die. This is the first glimpse we see of Bosola judging some evil as too evil - and that even he is sickened. He criticizes Ferdinand (hypocritically given his own large role in the murders), saying,

Do you not weep?

Other sins only speak; murder shrieks out:
The element of water moistens the earth,
But blood flies upwards and bedews the heavens.

The second, much less valiant, moment occurs when Ferdinand refuses to pay the sum Bosola was promised in return for his service. At this injustice Bosola puts up a stronger fight, and even has a moment of self-reproach -

I am angry with myself, now that I wake.

But to what has Bosola awakened, exactly? Immediately after this line, I began to hope that Bosola was about to have a major shift in perspective, that he would regret the active role he played in the Duchess's death and that he would be a vastly different character as the play closed. However, I don't think that's the case. Upon reading further through Bosola's closing speech in Act 4, Bosola says,

All our good deeds and bad, a perspective
That shows us hell! That we cannot be suffered
To do good when we have a mind to it!
This is manly sorrow

Despite the many experiences that might have prompted internal change within Bosola, he remains a static character. He insists that man, intrinsically, cannot do good (Another ironic statement, given that one is hard-pressed to find any point in the play which Bosola even attempts to do good). He remains, in Loeb's words, " as someone who's given up all hope of finding a door, much less a key."

The Duchess of Malfi ~ the Duchess vs. the Virgin Queen

At the beginning of our discussion with this text, our professor stressed that The Duchess of Malfi was written in a less optimistic time, the Jacobian period. She referenced the poet John Donne, who said of this time, "tis all in pieces, all coherence gone." For this text I want to highlight the many cultural ideas and attitudes that are clashing within this text, and the characters that are attempting to piece together some form of coherence about their lives and identity.

A woman in a position of authority, thus far in British history, could only survive by fitting into the extremely particular set of rules that would make her presence not threatening to the men in her life. For example, Queen Elizabeth I, or, "the virgin queen" succeeded as a ruler because she adopted the ready-made, already accepted and loved image of the virgin Mary. She appeared to be married to the throne, god, and her people.

The Duchess was the furthest thing from "the virgin queen." She was a woman who embraced her desires, sexuality, and womanhood at the expense of her reputation and public opinion.

Cariola says of the Duchess,

whether the spirit of greatness or woman reigns most in her, I know not, but it shows a fearful madness. I owe her much of pity.

Cariola, taken aback by the boldness of the Duchess, struggles to make sense of the type of woman she is. Cariola seems to recognize that there is something valiant in the Duchess's defiance of the restrictions imposed upon her by Ferdinand. She admits in the above excerpt that the Duchess's choices and actions may be heroic, but that they may also be a product of her inherently fickle and sinful woman-ness. Either way, Cariola knows that the Duchess is stepping much too far outside the bounds of how it is permitted for a woman to behave, and therefore calls it "madness."

The reader, too, struggles throughout the text to define the Duchess. Is she a hero? Her defiance towards her role as a leader for the sake of fulfilling her desires of the heart could be interpreted as heroic. She unabashedly pursues what she wants and finds it - a husband, children, companionship, sex. However her motives for her actions often seem childish - the way she breaks her promise to Ferdinand about marrying again directly after he leaves is almost comical - and so she doesn't seem to quite fit the role of a tragic hero.

The complexity and ambiguity of the Duchess's character served to make her more accessible and human to the reader. As the Duchess struggles to assert herself throughout the play, the reader resonates with her yearing towards human desires - and it comes as a gross shock that the Duchess must pay with her life for taking actions that give purpose and meaning to life. This point solidified for me in the most resounding line of the play,

I am Duchess of Malfi still.

In the middle of her death scene, the Duchess asserts herself, asserts her identity and presence to Bosola, and perhaps more importantly, to herself. She does not beg for her life and she does not repent her life either. I am Duchess of Malfi still. The modern reader is reminded of Walt Whitman's,
"Song of Myself," and that this line is the Duchess's "barbaric yawp" over the rooftops of her world.

This is a picture of the Duchess (center), Ferdinand (left), and the Cardinal (right), taken at a production of The Duchess of Malfi at Columbia University. In this picture you can see the Duchess open defiance of the men around her, sharply contrasting with the austere portrait of Queen Elizabeth I shown below. 

Queen Elizabeth I

Spenser as gynophobic?

p. 787 Therefore she spewd out of her filthy maw
A floud of poyson horrible and blacke,
Full of great lumpes of flesh and gobbets raw,
Which stunck so vildly, that it forst him slacke
His grasping hold, and from her turne him backe:
Her vomit full of bookes and paers was,
With loathly frogs and toades, which eyes did lacke,
And creeping sought way in the weedy gras:
Her filthy parbreake all the place defiled has

p. 879 Her dried dugs, like bladders lacking wind,
Hong downe, and filthy matter from them weld;
Her wrizled skin as rough, as maple rind,
So scabby was, that would have loathed all womankind.

Her neather parts, the shame of all her kind,
My chaster Muse for shame doth blush to write;
But at her rompe she growing had behind
A foxes taile, with dong all fowly dight;
And eke her feete most monstruous were in sight . . . 

These descriptions of the female form, and specifically the female reproductive system are incredibly grotesque. I think the strongest imagery in The Faerie Queene comes from Spenser's imaginings of the female form and it's inherent sinful nature.

After doing some brief research on the topic of anti-feminism and renaissance literature, I found a website that helps to break down some of the more popular works from this time period that deal with this issue.

http://www.inforefuge.com/anti-feminism-literature

It specifically discusses Spenser's TFQ. It points to Britomart as being a character that certainly has more agency than Abigail or Duessa, but that also falls short of having true agency, given that Britomart is only so important because she honors that which is more important than her life; her virginity.

The Jew of Malta

What I appreciated most from this work is the moment that Abigail is allowed to become a more complex character.

p. 322 But now experience, purchased with grief, has made me see the difference of things

After Abigail sees who her father truly is, and how she has been made into a pawn for his own profit, she laments her own role, and can now see, "the difference of things." Her new perspective allows her character to grow and deepen, something not common in the Renaissance's portrayal of women through art forms.

In class, we have also discussed the different things the audience may have taken from this story. We have especially focused upon the complexities within Marlowe's language that suggest more complicated readings than some scholars adhere to. For example, when Abigail dies, the catholic priest says, Ay, and a virgin too. That grieves me most. Abigail's culture tells her that more ultimate than her death is her virginity. Is this line merely a reflection of everybody's accepted ideas on womanhood? Or could this line be attempting to highlight the absurdity of Abigail's culture?

Not having a doctoral degree in Renaissance literature, it is difficult to know exactly when I'm imposing my modern sensibilities and meaning making processes on works that belong to another era. I'm interested in doing more research so I can understand the prevailing philosophies and critical thinking capacities of people who lived in Marlowe's time. Following are two books related to this subject available on google scholar that I intend to explore .

Daily Life in Renaissance Italy by Elizabeth and Thomas Cohen

The Education of Women During the Renaissance by Mary Agnes Cannon

Dr. Faustus

Reading Dr. Faustus I can't help but be reminded of that severely anxious disease many college students suffer from - the "what do I do with my life" question. I think most kids growing up are bombarded by a bunch of well meaning adults with "make sure you never do this," or, "you have to make sure you do this, don't be like me." Don't regret. Don't become one of those people that look back on their lives and shake their heads, saying softly, "If only I had done that a bit differently."

Perhaps the fear of ending up like this is exacerbated by the amount of choice we have in our modern era (something Marlowe certainly did not.) But, then again, Marlowe did make a remarkable transition from poverty to affluence through making strong personal commitments to education and bettering himself. He was able to climb to the top of every social ladder (respected, educated, wealthy.) That was a feat of self-discipline which must have instilled in him an intoxicating sense of choice, capability and willpower.

p 1140 Is not thy soul thine own?

But still, Faustus says,  Philosophy is odious and obscure, both law and physic are for petty wits; Divinity is the basest of the three, Unpleasant, harsh, contemptible, and vile Tis magic, magic that hath ravished me If Faustus was a bit more self aware, he may have recognized that he has been in a similar position before. Wasn't it philosophy, law, physics, and divinity that used to ravish him? Why else would he have all those degrees? Those were the subjects that were "magical" to him - because perhaps they seemed to indicate to him a world he wasn't supposed to have but was somehow able to enter and be a part of. And once he was accepted into it and understood what it could give him, he grew tired of it. Faustus still wasn't finding the answers he wanted. And in the end of the story Faustus didn't find answers either, even after he had explored that realm of dark, mystical magic. So, what is to be made of this story? Let's look back at the last bit, the epilogue that the chorus sings.

Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight,
And burned is Apollo's laurel bough,
That sometime grew within this learned man.
Faustus is gone! Regard his hellish fall,
Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise
Only to wonder at unlawful things:
Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits
To practice more than heavenly power permits

Should we conclude that Marlowe intended for this to be a morality story after all - that all of Faustus' problems may have never occurred if he had stayed with God, if he had continued studying Divinity, if he had kept his faith in the eventual, ultimate reward? I can see the argument for interpreting this story in this way. However, there are a few instances in the piece that I think fight for a more complicated interpretation of Faustus' story.

p. 1129 yet art thou still but Faustus, and a man

A sentence that obviously resonates with generations and generations of people. Despite all of his achievements, all that he's been able to make of his "self" - there are things that he cannot surpass - mortality, humanity, etc.

p. 1131 resolve me of all ambiguities
Another timeless statement. Another statement that resonates, particularly with the impossibly perfectionistic standards of our time - the human yearning to make sense of, to categorize

p. 1155 what art thou, Faustus, but a man condemned to die? . . . Confound these passions with a quiet sleep

like Stephen King says in On Writing, substance abuse and addiction may be rationalized because we think to ourselves, " how else can I face the existential horror of it all and continue to work?" I think that maybe Faustus smothered himself in academia and knowledge the same way an alcoholic consumes drinks - to numb and run away from shadows that they aren't able to look at

Although the ending of the story is good evidence for the "morality story" interpretation of this piece, Faustus's character and dialogue point to a more complicated and timeless interpretation of a story about a human being's fear and vices in the face of mortality - and the tendency to draw conclusions about it all only for the sake of being comfortable ( hence the moral, religious ending?)