Revenge play or revenge tragedy is a kind of a play that was initiated in the

Latin drama by Seneca, a playwright of the 1st century A.D. In a tragedy as

Senecan model defines, a shocking murder takes place and it cries out for
their revenge. A striking characteristic of the Senecan tragedy was its
emphasis on horror and violence. It was Thomas Kyd who introduced this
kind of play into the Elizabethan theatre by writing his Spanish Tragedy.
After Kyd, this type of plays was traced in Shakespeares Hamlet, Macbeth,
and Marstons Antonios Revenge etc.

In The Duchess of Malfi, there is no dearth of horrors, and these horrors

undoubtedly give to this play the character of a melodrama. In this play the
Aragonian brothers Ferdinand and the Cardinal take their revenge on the
Duchess for remarrying to her steward against their wishes. But the
Duchesss marriage is not a crime. The wicked brothers have no motive
except the wounded family have. The sympathy of the audience remains
throughout the Duchess who is the target of her brothers revenge. The
brothers ill-feeling toward their sisters second marriage infuriated them so
much that they become inhuman and hired an instrument Bosola to kill her.
Ferdinand confesses:

What was meanness of her match to me?

I can confess, I had a hope

Had she continued to have gained?

An infinite mass of treasure by her death.

Horror scenes come repeatedly in the play. The Duchess is strangled on

the stage before the very eyes of the audience. The strangulated of Cariola
and the Duchess children then follows. Later more murders on the stage.
Julia is poisoned to death and the three evil doers die at one anothers
hands. In view of these horrors, critic Dr. Boklund says that The duchess of
Malfi, undoubtedly contains an element of calculated appeal to the morbid
instincts of any audience.

According to Senecan model, in a revenge tragedy the murder of the ghost

stalks about and asks for his revenge. In The Duchess of Malfi, like
Shakespeare, Webster tries to make the spirit of his dead protagonist. All
the villains- Ferdinand, The Cardianl, Bosola and even the hero, Antonio-
are haunted by the spirit of the dead Duchess. Bosola confesses that he
sees an image of the Duchess. Then there is omen of the echo scene
which warns Antonio of the eminent death if he goes to the cardinals
palace. Finally everyone who meets his death in Act-V dies in the
remembering of the Duchess.

In a tragedy some character becomes mad. Here it is Ferdinand who

becomes mad. He confesses that he is haunted by the spirit of the
Duchess. In his madness he tries to throttle his own shadow and cries
strangling is a cruel death. He taunted the Duchess with the words the
howling of a wolf is music to thee. In his lycanthropia, wolf- madness, he
goes howling along with the streets till he makes all the villains restless.

There is no doubt that this play has a considerable melodramatic content.

Such was the character of most revenge plays in those times. Webster also
makes use of another element of the revenge plays namely a servant of the
Machiavellian kind, a rogue usually known as the malcontent, who mixes
his bloody actions with meditations. Marstons play- The malcontent,
illustrates this particular combination of satiric and philosophic meditation
with horrors both physical and mental.

In The Duchess of Malfi, Webster makes use of pathos known for tragedy
writers. According to Aristotle pity and fear are the two tragic emotions and
the play arouses both of them quite abundantly. The most memorable lines
of the drama are filled with pathos which Ferdinand utters in a fit of remorse
after looking at the face of his sister: Cover her face; mine eyes
dazzle. She died young.

This line confirmed Ferdinand as a jealous lover of his sister that is why he
pays to Bosola so that he can closely spy on the Duchess and on her
activities. F.L. Lucas has pointed out that these, lines show Ferdinands
lust for his own sister.

There is no doubt that in The Duchess of Malfi revenge plays a part of its
own but Websters tone of moral makes it degraded from the original
supremacy. In this play revenge itself is a very nominal thing. One may also
put forward in the conclusion that by introducing the tone of the moral
justice at the end Webster raises the crude theme of revenge to a higher
plane. It shows that Webster is not absolutely lost in the blood and revenge
like other tragedy writers. Instead he rises above them and established a
higher altar for sophisticated tragedy.