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  • Textbook
  • © 2001

Webster: The Tragedies

The Tragedies

Authors:

  • Contains close textual analysis of the two bestknown of Webster's plays: The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi
    Leads the student on to further study of other Jacobean plays, by giving them the tools of analysis
    Provides contextual information about Webster's life and work and a selection of critical views on the plays

Part of the book series: Analysing Texts (ANATX)

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Table of contents (12 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-ix
  2. Introduction

    1. Introduction

      • Kate Aughterson
      Pages 1-4
  3. Analysing Webster’s Tragedies

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 5-5
    2. Openings

      • Kate Aughterson
      Pages 7-30
    3. Endings

      • Kate Aughterson
      Pages 31-53
    4. Turning Points

      • Kate Aughterson
      Pages 54-82
    5. Tragic Heroines

      • Kate Aughterson
      Pages 83-109
    6. Heroes and Villains

      • Kate Aughterson
      Pages 110-136
    7. Society and Politics

      • Kate Aughterson
      Pages 137-160
    8. Webster’s Theatricality

      • Kate Aughterson
      Pages 161-183
    9. Iconography and Imagery

      • Kate Aughterson
      Pages 184-203
  4. Back Matter

    Pages 204-205
  5. The Context and the Critics

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 207-207
    2. Webster’s Plays

      • Kate Aughterson
      Pages 209-221
    3. Contexts

      • Kate Aughterson
      Pages 222-239
    4. Sample Critical Views

      • Kate Aughterson
      Pages 240-258
  6. Back Matter

    Pages 259-266

About this book

Webster's theatre was also Shakespeare's theatre: but their tragedies are very different. Webster has a reputation for angst-ridden, obsessive and debased characters and the creation of a sick and decaying world. Yet his heroines are the amongst the strongest characters, male or female, in Jacobean drama.

This book shows how Webster's plays portray a world in which patriarchal, aristocratic politics are dissected as diseased. Through close analysis of key moments, scenic and dramatic structure, characterisation, theatricality and imagery, this book enables students to appreciate Webster's individual contribution to our dramatic heritage. Through such textual reading, we learn how he uses drama to debate contemporary political and social issues, most explicitly those of gender. The book provides students with effective reading, critical and analytical tools with which to approach Webster's plays as dramatic scripts for our time, as well as their own, and thus as rivals to Shakespeare's major tragedies.

About the author

KATE AUGHTERSON is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Central England, specialising in the Renaissance, gender and drama.

Bibliographic Information