The Duchess of Malfi: A case study in the literary representation of women

The Jacobean drama has regularly attracted the attention of critics for its lively representation of women as strong, manipulative, self-willed, passionate and controlling of dramatic action. This ‘masculine strength’ wins the acclaim of the critic for its authenticity, and for its real insight into woman’s character. It is the mark of the superior vision of the Jacobean dramatist: he sees beyond the contemporary stereotypes of meek and grieving womanhood to the ‘true nature of woman’ – to a full-bloodedly warrior-like femaleness to which the Renaissance for the first time gave a voice. And inevitably in the last decade both feminist critics and female actors have been drawn to the leading female roles in the plays of Webster and Middleton by their reputation for ‘liberatedness’. The temptation to adopt these figures as rolemodels for our own period has proved irresistible. Helen Mirren, interviewed about her highly successful and critically acclaimed performance as the Duchess in Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi in the 1981 Round House production, attributed her success with the role to the fact that it is ‘very much a play for today’: ‘It is essentially a feminist play about a woman who is fighting for her autonomy.’ 1