Jacobean Drama

General Features
 This terms refers to the theatrical works created
during the reign of James I (1603-1625) in England.
 The plays from the Jacobean period are decadent,
spectacular and bizarre.
 The Jacobeans are deeply aware of the conflicts of
their civilization₌ their sharp sense of the ambiguities
and contradictions of humanism.
 The crisis of the early 17th c: a conflict of values,
between the religious traditions of the Middle Ages
and the secular predisposition of the Renaissance;
 About the turn of the century the social system of
the Tudor aristocracy was undermined by the
influence of capitalism and the struggle for wealth and
privilege- the Machiavellic corruption of the social
values
 The image of the Renaissance hero (strong-willed,
great-hearted ) becomes a matter of illusion.
 Jonson’s characters embody a whole society
animated by greed, hypocrisy and gullible vanity.
 Shakespeare’s great tragedies, from Hamlet to
Timon highly render the crisis in humanism: In
Julius Caesar : society vs. individual greatness, in
Antony and Cleopatra : will vs. senses
 The tone of satiric irony, invective and bitterness
is constantly voiced in the writings of most of
Shakespeare’s successors: Cyril Tourneur’s
Revenger’s Tragedy (1606) is the most typical
drama of the period.
 Grotesque satire and moral allegory assimilate
the Senecan horrors of the plot.
 The Jacobeans were still influenced by medieval ideas:
tragedy was a version of the Morality play.
 Highly Senecan in structure and attitude, tragedies deal
with tyrannical ambitions, vicious humours and moral
instruction in a particularly fiery and forceful style.
 The horrors of action are meant to amplify the moral
theme: imagery connected to storms or shipwreck,
metaphors of disease, comparisons between men and
beasts, references to blood.
 tragedies tackle both aspects of life: the domestic
passions and the political ambitions ( man “a little
kingdom”; the state “a body politic”).
 In dealing with the theme, of death tragedy, especially
after 1600, moves towards stoical resistance( conflicting
emotions, the grandeur of defiance, the Senecan theme
of the hero defied.

 John Marston (1575-1634?)
 He wrote melodramatic tragedies of love and revenge and
comedies which farcically expose human follies and
ambitions.
His linguistic constructions are characterized by excessiveness
 Antonio’ s Revenge takes place in Italy and it contains various
typical Elizabethan dramatic situations: the stoical characters
are dedicated to revenge and trapped in the conflict between
passion and self-control.
 The Malcontent (1604)- the play is centered on the idea of
revenge and on the psychological side of characters; there
are ample scenes of crimes and destructions; the motives
behind the characters’ decisions or gestures sometimes
become obscure.
 Marston fundamentally oscillates between an interest in
Jonsonian humours and an interest in moral situations.
 A similar story of love, lust and conspiracy
takes place in The Dutch courtesan(1603-
1604) - the duping of a miser by a
fraud/swindler.
 Marston’s plays deaL with tragic situations,
intrigues, feigned madness and above all
revenge in the upper class Italy.
 He inspired himself from the Senecan
stoicism, to which he added his personal
despair through long, exhausting lines
 Marston exposes moral corruption
 He often makes his moral point by
exaggerating the disorders of an evil age,
until he transforms his characters into
grotesque figures
 Thomas Heywood
(ca1570-1641)
 he approached patriotic and historical
themes
 he produced two great examples of the
“domestic tragedy” type- the tragic
results of passion and lust in ordinary
domestic situations,
 His fluency and facility in handling many
of the Shakespearean themes made
Charles Lamb describe him as “a prose
Shakespeare”.
 In A woman killed with kindness (1603) he gives the story of a
woman who performs adultery. Her husband controls
himself and decides to punish her with kindness, behaving
exactly as he has done before
 The sinning wife acknowledges her sin and dies repentant
and sorrowful, having summoned her husband to her bedside
where he assures her of his forgiveness.
 The play deals with the clinical descriptions of her death,
caused by the fact that she wasn’t able to bear her husband’s
behavior.
 This play makes the most of a sensational fictional situation:
it opens with a wedding between a supposedly chaste
woman and a man proud of his social status and personal
prosperity. But this rapidly reverses into deception and
destruction.
 In other works (The Fair Maid of the West , A girl worth
gold) women have an extraordinary power of mind, are
resourceful and courageous in fighting for their goals.)
John Webster (ca 1580-1625)
 Ambition, rapacity and lust are the motivating factors in the
cruel behavior of his villains
 the interest of the plays lies in the nobility with which even a
vicious character confronts his doom
 The White Devil (ca 1610) and The Duchess of Malfi (ca1614)
are his best plays: Episodic structure, the playwright exploits
the terror and grandeur of the moment.
 In The White D, the heroine is also the villain, or at least one
of the villains. Vittoria Corombona is involved in an
adulterous adventure with the Duke of Brachiano, but the
Duke in a fit of rage kills Vittoria’s husband, her children and
himself.
 The scene when Vittoria is brought to the Royal Court to be
judged for her adultery shows Webster as a master of
portrayal as Vittoria manages to keep her dignity and turns
into a victim.
 The true villain of the play is Vittoria’s brother,
Flamineo, the Duke’s pander/pimp, but even he
achieves dignity in dying.
 The play is to be remembered mostly for its
atmosphere of wild pathos”: Vittoria’s dying cry: “My
soul, like to a ship in a balck storm, /Is driven , I know
not whither.”
 Webster draws on abnormality, on ambitions and
lusts.
 Vittoria is the most achieved character, because she is
driven by ambition and passion far beyond the
ordinary ones. She has often been compared to
Marlowe’s characters.
 A satire of court life, this play is centered on the
theme of the Machiavellian/Faustian character, the
revenge theme and on the idea that in moments of
ultimate crisis even evil characters can redeem
themselves by a stoic dignity.
 The Duchess of Malfi (1614) deals with a young widowed
duchess who is forbidden by her brothers to remarry,
 She secretly marries her own steward and when this is
discovered the brothers prepare sly horrors for her and then
have her killed.
 Her brothers punish her with the help of Bosola
 She is finally drawn mad and sent to an asylum as a lunatic.
She manages to keep her identity in front of all these horros
and the end comes as liberation for her.
 Motivation is obscure with Webster and distinct episodes are
the ones that give value to the play.
 The chain of horrors carried out by Bosola ocasionally
amounts to ludicrousness,
 Even the masque of madmen – the duchess is imprisoned
and she is surrounded by lunatics released from a madhouse
and one of them howls a dreadful mournful song.- stops
short of the ridiculous because Webster keeps our attention
fixed on the stoical duchess who stately holds that “I am
Duchess of Malfi still”.
 Ferdinand, Duke of Calabria, and the Cardinal
viciously engineer a plan of morbid horrors and
psychological torture.
 The Duchess is gradually worn down to mental
degradation but in the end she is no longer
terrified by the prospect of rough strangulation.
She becomes the single pattern of virtue in a
dark, immoral, male world.
 Due to its desperate search for sensationalism,
Webster’s art is decadent.
 Still, He is the greatest representative of this
period because he did not indulge in creating
sensations for their own sake, but his plays have
morality attached to them and present criticism
of the contemporary society.