A winter's snake: dramatic form in the tragedies of John Webster

Abstract

John Webster's reputation as a dramatist stems mainly from his two great revenge tragedies The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi. Webster's dramas have attracted critical controversy, as some commentators find his plays incoherent, tangled and chaotic, fitfully illuminated by brilliant scenes and speeches. In A Winter's Snake, Christina Luckyj dissects the structure of Webster's two most revived plays to reveal a unity of form and clarity of vision. Luckyj analyzes the devices that Webster used and that help to rank him as a principal playwright: juxtaposition of stage analogues for opening a play; large-scale repetition for intensification in mid-play; final act subplots for recapitulation in his plays; and concentric form for clarification of a play's overall shape and meaning. Analyzing trends in criticism of Webster and Renaissance drama, this book presents a new view of Webster, not as an eccentric or morally confused artist but as a careful craftsman who used repetition and other devices to convey a complex moral vision that emerges chiefly in performance.