1. John Webster and the Duchess of Malfi

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this module, we think about John Webster himself, about whom we know very little, and the historical context of the play. In particular, we think T. S. Eliot’s description of Webster as a man who “saw the skull beneath the skin”.

Course

In this course, Professor John Lennard explores John Webster’s masterpiece, the Duchess of Malfi. The course begins by thinking about John Webster himself, about whom we know very little, and the historical context for the play itself. After that, we think about five key characters in the play—the Cardinal and Ferdinand, Antonio and the Duchess, and Bosola. In the final module, we think about the staging of the Duchess of Malfi, focusing in particular on four recent productions—including the 2014 production at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, starring Gemma Arterton.

Lecturer

Born in Bristol, and educated at Oxford and St Louis, Dr John Lennard has taught English, American, and Commonwealth Literature in Cambridge, London, and Jamaica over more than twenty years. He has written two widely used textbooks (on poetry and drama) and monographs on Shakespeare, Paul Scott, Nabokov, and Faulkner, as well as two collections of essays on contemporary genre writers in crime, science fiction and fantasy, and romance. Enthusiastic, discursive, widely knowledgeable, and a demon for punctuation (on which he has also published extensively), he has been a popular Summer School Course Leader and lecturer for the Institute of Continuing Education since 1992.