Le baroque dépravé dans La Duchesse d’Amalfi de John Webster

In The Duchess of Malfi, baroque art appears an art of evil that Webster attempts to deconstruct. The baroque theatricality that serves to torture the Duchess and to put her to death is shown as depraved. Dissimulation and artifice eventually appear as the foundations of both a deadly aesthetics and...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Claire Gheeraert-Graffeuille
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Institut du Monde Anglophone 2006-04-01
Series:Etudes Epistémè
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/episteme/2609
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Summary:In The Duchess of Malfi, baroque art appears an art of evil that Webster attempts to deconstruct. The baroque theatricality that serves to torture the Duchess and to put her to death is shown as depraved. Dissimulation and artifice eventually appear as the foundations of both a deadly aesthetics and of a venomous society. It is all the more relevant to apply the baroque category to Webster’s play as it allows linking aesthetic forms and contemporary polemics: far from being self-reflexive, The Duchess of Malfi is part of the anti-catholic propaganda that was rife in Jacobean England.
ISSN:1634-0450