The Duchess of Malfi

The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hard to find a character in literature that embraces chaos more than Bosola – a scholar and a soldier who turns himself into a spy and assassin before rediscovering a sense of morality at the end, when it’s too late. The play continually makes reference to the melancholic humour of the characters – a kind of worldly depressive attitude that leads to ethical nihilism. It is the Duchess who provides an alternative model of being – confident in asserting her desires and dutiful towards her family. She is a shining light in the darkness, and cannot survive the maniacal melancholics who surround her. This play is not quite as outrageous as John Ford’s ‘Tis Pity, but it comes close. I’m all for it.

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The Tamer Tamed

The Tamer Tamed by John Fletcher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A rare case where the sequel improves on the original, showing that The Taming of the Shrew’s dodgy sexual politics were questioned even in Shakespeare’s day. Fletcher turns the tables on the flamboyant “wife-breaker” by having the women in the play group together to go on strike and demand conditions for better treatment. There’s a bit of balancing there, as some of the demands seem then as now quite frivolous – Maria making free with her husband’s wealth in a way that doesn’t quite square with the responsible management of the household. But arguably this is just another ploy to “break” Petruchio’s will. Once achieved, Maria promises mutuality and obedience, although as the play’s beginning suggests, these promises at a play’s end don’t always last a marriage.

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The Taming of the Shrew

The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Solidifies my theory that Shakespeare didn’t write any great plays in the first seven years of his career, with the possible exception of Love’s Labour’s Lost (and even then I find that play hard to like). Emma Smith makes a good case for the fundamental ambiguity of whether Katherine is in fact tamed by Petrucio – the text leaves options open for different stagings. For what it’s worth, Katherine’s extended capitulation speech at the end of the play suggests to me an acceptance of her fate, rather than an ironic and hostile attitude to it. Shakespeare would grow out of the urge to humble his active and opinionated heroines, and his plays became better for it.

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Othello

Othello by William Shakespeare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Othello's constant vows to heaven and his romantic view of himself sets up his marriage to Desdemona in such idealised terms that they demand interrogation – which the villainously sceptical Iago is more than happy to provide. The play was written in close proximity to Measure for Measure, which is very interested in how moral purity turns people into hypocrites – Angelo and Isabella are maneuvered by the 'Duke of dark corners' into sordid compromises. In Othello, sexual jealousy is the rotten apple in the barrel. Othello and Desdemona are more sympathetic figures than Angelo and Isabella, and Iago is more straightforwardly evil than Duke Vincentio, but there's a similar dynamic of heavenly ideals being dragged by the devil into hell. Iago's resentment is the driving factor in this process – all ideals must be torn down as a result of being overlooked for promotion. The real hero in the story is his wife Emilia, who betrays and exposes him in the end, but also shows Desdemona a more realistic attitude to love and marriage, one that reflects Rosalind's lectures to Orlando in As You Like It. Between heaven and hell is the world, and to live in it requires abandoning the absolutist attitudes that destroy the couple in the play.

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The Merchant of Venice

The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reading this play after The Jew of Malta does give an insight into Shakespeare’s temperament in my view. Marlowe’s villain is a caricature that nonetheless delights the audience with the audacity of his evil plots. Marlowe’s flamboyant personality and unorthodox opinions shine through. Shylock is also clearly a villain, but Shakespeare cannot help but fill out the sense of grievance that motivates his desire for revenge. He is in successive scenes abhorrent, pitiful and a figure of fun. Shakespeare is a man that sees all the angles. The ambiguity of his depictions in his plays I suspect reveals the reticence of his judgements in real life.

The Merchant of Venice isn’t quite as finely balanced as more political plays like Richard II or Julius Caesar. Antonio, the titular Merchant, is clearly a more heroic figure than Shylock, even if he does spit at and berate him. The play contrasts the self-interested practice of usury with Antonio and Bassanio’s open-hearted generosity. The financial metaphors for love that abound in the play ironise this liberality, but ultimately the play celebrates it. Shylock’s greatest sin may be his miserliness. It is incumbent on the fortunate to give and forgive freely.

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The Jew of Malta

The Jew of Malta: Christopher Marlowe by Stephen Bevington
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a tragedy in name only. Part of the appeal then and now is Barabas’s gleeful plotting to trick and murder anyone who crosses him. The language is clear and pacy, and the bodies pile up very quickly. It’s so cartoonish it’s difficult to take seriously. Shakespeare undoubtedly took that model but pushed it into more unsettling territory with Richard III and Titus Andronicus. The Jew of Malta is a simple black comedy in comparison, with very little depth to Barabas’s character. Yes, Ferneze gets him in the end, and is arguably a more authentically successful Machiavellian, but he’s hardly positioned as the real villain of the piece. The play nods to the prejudice the Jews face, but doesn’t suggest it is a motivating factor for Barabas’s murder spree. Shakespeare’s finely balanced viewpoints are not Marlowe’s style. His heroes are bombastic charismatics who break all the rules and delight audiences in doing so, even if conventional morality demands that they are punished at the end.

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