S. Chiari et S. Lemercier-Goddard (dir.), John Webster’s “dismal tragedy” - The Duchess of Malfi reconsidered
Sophie Chiari et Sophie Lemercier-Goddard (dir.), John Webster’s “dismal tragedy” - The Duchess of Malfi reconsidered
Clermont-Ferrand : Presses Universitaires Blaise Pascal, 2019.
356 p.
EAN 9782845168558
18,00 EUR
Présentation de l'éditeur :
Secrets and lies, incest and madness, mental torture and brutal murders, apparitions and lycanthropy: there is little that The Duchess of Malfi, first performed in 1613-1614, shies away from, inflicting on its spectators a whirlwind of conflicting passions and emotions. John Webster’s drama has been labelled as baroque, grotesque, mannerist, gothic or feminist. Against Bosola, the figure of the malcontent who also embodies the typical early modern overreacher, the Duchess stands as a symbol of female transgression before she is eventually crushed by evil and male power. Bloody sensationalism should however not eclipse what some critics have seen as a drama of knowledge.
In Delio’s concluding speech, Webster’s irony is at its peak when he encourages his audience to “make noble use / Of this great ruin” and seems to present the play as a vehicle for moral instruction, defining in a final twist an ethics based on the “integrity of life”. A masterpiece of Jacobean theatre, The Duchess of Malfi reinvents the genre of the revenge tragedy and, beyond its multiple borrowings from other writers, it explores the construction of gender, the class structure of a changing society and the complex interlacing of desire, violence and cruel laughter.
Following the recent inclusion of The Duchess of Malfi in the Agrégation syllabus in France (2019-2020), this volume is meant to provide new perspectives on the play, examining questions relating to politics, gender, aesthetics, textuality, materiality and performance. Its various chapters highlight the richness and incisiveness of the tragedy, reflecting recent critical trends in early modern drama studies.
Sophie Chiari est Professeur de littérature anglaise (XVIe-XVIIe siècles) à l'Université Clermont-Auvergne, et membre de l'IHRIM (UMR 5317). Elle a récemment dirigé Spectacular Science, Technology and Superstition in the Age of Shakespeare avec Mickaël Popelard (Edinburgh University Press, 2017) et Freedom and Censorship in Early Modern English Literature (Routledge, 2018). Sa dernière monographie s’intitule Shakespeare’s Representation of Weather, Climate and Environment (Edinburgh University Press, 2018).
Sophie Lemercier-Goddard est Maître de Conférences à l'ENS de Lyon en littérature de la Renaissance et membre de l’IHRIM (UMR 5317). Ses recherches en cours portent sur les questions de traduction, d’identité et sur l’écriture de l’empire dans les récits d’exploration et de colonisation britanniques de la Première Modernité. Elle est l'auteur de plusieurs articles sur le voyage de circumnavigation de Francis Drake ainsi que sur les récits des explorateurs anglais à la recherche du passage du Nord-Ouest (H. Gilbert, M. Frobisher, H. Hudson). Elle a co-édité avec Sophie Chiari et Michèle Vignaux New perspectives on Shakespeare’s "As you like it" (Presses Universitaires Blaise Pascal, 2017).