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Notes for John Webster's Life
1: This inforrmation is taken from the "Introduction" of John Webster: Three Plays, written by D.C. Gunby for Penguin Books, London, 1986, p. 9.
2: The fullest modern account of Webster's life will be found in Forker, pp. 3-61. [Charles R. Forker, Skull Beneath the Skin: The Achievement of John Webster (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986)]
3: See Elizabeth M. Brennan, "Introduction: The Author", in John Webster: The Duchess of Malfi, edited by Elizabeth M. Brennan, third edition fully revised, The New Mermaids, London & C Black, London, 1995, pp. xv-xvii.
4: This information is from Brennan who says that is indebted to Laurie Maguire, The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker, edited by Fredson Bowers, vol. I (Cambridge, 1953), pp. 399-400n.
5: See Hammond, Antony, "John Webster", Dictionary of Literary Biography, ed. Fredson Bowers, vol. 58, Detroit: Gale Researchers, 1987, pp. 284-302.
6: R. W. Dent, John Webster's Borrowing (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1960, p. 59).
7: See R. W. Dent, John Webster's Borrowing (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1960, p. 59).
8: R.G. Howarth, 'Webster's "Guise"', N&Q n.s. 13 (1966), 294-95; Forker, pp.134-35.
9: C.J. Sisson, Lost Plays of Shakespeare's Age (Cambridge, 1936), pp.80-124.
10: Charles R. Forker, Skull Beneath the Skin: The Achievement of John Webster (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986, pp.164-65)
11: Forker, Skull Beneath the Skin: The Achievement of John Webster (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986, pp.145-59)
12: Forker, Skull Beneath the Skin: The Achievement of John Webster (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986, pp.189-200)
13: Forker, Skull Beneath the Skin: The Achievement of John Webster (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986, pp.171-224)
14: Gunby, D.C., John Webster: Three Plays, Penguin Books, London, 1986, p. 14.
The Merchant Taylors Company : The Merchant Taylor's Company, or to give it the full name by which it is described in the Royal Charter of 1503, The Gild of Merchant Taylor's of the Fraternity of St. John the Baptist in the City of London, is one of the twelve great City Livery Companies.
In addition to its own schools the Company also provides scholarships to four schools nationally founded by past members of the company. The company also administers many charitable trusts created by members and benefactors.
The Merchant Taylor's Company is a two
minute walk from Bank Underground Station, the address is:
Merchant Taylor's Company
The Merchant Taylor's Company has occupied its present site since 1347. The mediaeval Hall was destroyed in the last war but the original walls were incorporated in the restoration by Sir Albert Richardson. The crypt of the 14th Century and the Great Kitchen, in use since at least 1425, still survive.
The guild of Merchant Taylor's of the Fraternity of Saint John Baptist in the City of London in one of Twelve Great Livery Companies surviving from mediaeval times.
The development of the Guild from a religious fraternity into a powerful association of citizens controlling the craft of tailoring and linen-armour making was recognised by the grant of the Royal Charter of Edward III in 1327. In the course of time the interests of the member spread into wider spheres of commerce and the association with the tailoring trade virtually came to an end in the 17th century. The basic tradition continued, however, that Freeman who prospered and became members of the Livery or of the brethren and their dependants within the company and often went far beyond that in providing funds for relief of poverty of sickness generally and for the endowment of schools.
Among its many present activities supporting Charitable activities over a very wide field, the Company provides Almshouses and flats for the elderly and infirm, supports educational activities and schools, notably Merchant Taylor's School, founded in 1561 in the City, moved in 1933 to Northwood and still having the Court of the Company as its Governors.
Christina Luckyj: Luckyj, Christina, The White Devil, New Mermaids, A & C Black, London, 1998, p. ix.
nos haec nivimus esse nihil: "We know these things are nothing" (Martial XIII, 2).
Nec... molestas: "You (the poet's book) will not fear the sneers of the malicious, nor supply wrappers for mackerel" (Martial IV, 86). See D.C. Gunby, John Webster: Three Plays, Penguin Books, London, 1986, p.37.
avant-garde: 1. those artists, writers, musicians, tc., whose techniques and ideas are markedly experimental or in advance of those generlly accepted. 2. of such artists, etc., their ideas, or techniques. 3. radical; daring. (from French VANGUARD).
The White Devil: Webster based The White Devil on a true story. Gunnar Boklund in a study of the play's sources, has counted 109 manuscript versions and 6 published accounts of the notoriousscandal, and identified some texts as the probable origin of Webster's play: first, A Letter Lately Written from Rome, by an Italian Gentleman (trans. Florio 1585); second, an Italian source (now lost) for a German newsletter written for the Fugger banking house; and third, another source more difficult to identify (perhaps Cesare Campana's Delle Historie del Mondo, 1596, and the early sixteenth-century Italian pamphlet Il miserabil e compassionevol). A conflation of these sources can give us some idea of what Webster probably believed of the affair (which is often quite distinct from historical fact). 'The story as Webster probably knew it began in 1580, when Oaolo Giordano, Duke of Bracciano, husband (of twenty-two years) to Isabella de' Medici and father to Giovanny, met Vittoria Accoramboni, a beautiful gentlewoman married to a nephew of Cardinal Montalto. He fell in love with her, but she virtuously refused him. With the aid of her brother Marcello, he then had her husband killed (at Monte Cavallo in Rome), but she again refused him. He then killed his own wife, and finally Vittoria submitted to him. His brother-in-law, Cardinal Medici, along with the Orsinis, entreated the Pope not to allow their kinsman to marry someone of so base a fortune. Cardinal Montalto desired to avange his innocent nephew. Though Vittoria was apprehended on her way to Paolo Giordano's house in the country and confined in a nunnery, and later in Castel Sant' Angelo, Paolo Giordano set her free and married her. When Montalto was elected Pope Sixtus V, he advised Paolo Giordano to leave Rome. The couple went to Padua, where they kept a magnificent court. Two months later Paolo Giordano died, and there was suspicion of poison. His will left his young widow a large property. She was urged to put aside the will, but she refused. Fifty armed men then stormed her house at Padua and shot her brother Flaminio. A kinsman to her husband, Lodovico Orsini (who by age 34 had killed forty men, for which he had been forced to leave Rome), stabbed Vittoria at prayer. After this murder, his house was bombarded by cannon until he surrendered, dagger in hand. Once he had confessed that he had committed the deed at the command of great princes, he spoke only once more: 'sed manet altamente repostum' ('it shall be treasured up in the depths of my mind': cf. II.i.262). Afterwards he was privately strangled, while his accomplices were first riven asunder with red-hot tongs, then killed with a hammer and finally quartered' (from The White Devil, ed. by Christina Luckyj, New Mermaids, A & C Black, London,1998, p. xii-xiii). The Duchess of Malfi: Giovanna d'Aragona, the original of the duchess, was married in 1490, at the age of twelve, to Alfonso Piccolomini, who became duke of Amalfi in 1493.
Easterward Hoe: 'A comedy by G. Chapman, Jonson, and J. Marston, printed 1605, having been previously performed by the Children of the Revels at the Blackfriars. A passage derogatory to the Scots (iii. iii. 40-7) gave offence at court, and Chapman and Jonson were imprisoned, but released on the intercession of powerful friends. The play is particularly interesting for the light it throws on London life of the time. Like Dekker's Shoemaker's
Holiday, it gives a sympathetic picture of a tradesman.
Appius and Virginia: '(1) Appius and Virginia, a tragedy traditionally attributed to Webster, but by some authorities to Heywood, in whole or part. R. Brooke first seriously questioned the Webster attribution in 1913, and suggested Heywood; F. L. Lucas in his 1927 edition of Webster argues for a distribution of scenes between the two playwrights; and A. M. Clark concludes in 'The Authorship of Appius and Virginia' (MLR, Jan. 1921) that Webster revised the play, but 'the bulk of the play is Heywood's alone'. The date of production is uncertain (?1603-34) and it appears not to have been printed until 1654. The plot is taken from the classical legend (see Virginia) which forms one of the stories in Painter's Palace of Pleasure; (2) a tragedy by J. Dennis. (from Xrefer Appius and Virginia, The Oxford Companion to English Literature, Margaret Drabble and Oxford University Press 1995).
In Tragaediam... Londinensis: To Tragedy. As light from darkness is struck at the blow of the thunderer, / May it (ruin to the evil) be life to famous poets. Chron. Londinensis: Chronologer of London. Thomas Middleton, a dramatic collaborator with Webster was appointed City Chronologer in 1620. (Brennan)
M.H. Butler: See Encyclopaedia Britannica: Shakespeare and the Globe: Then and Now, Elizabethan and early Stuart drama, and article by M.H. Butler, Senior Lecturer in English, University of Leeds, England, and author of Theatre and Crisis 1632-1642, that is part of a larger section on the Renaissance period (1550-1660).
Henry Fitzgeffrey: A Renaissance satirist, he wrote against Webster ans called him "Cartwright-playwright" and made adverse comments about Jacobean habits, for example about worn world: clothes and identity on the Renaissance stage, he attacks upon the acting companies combined a critique of the actors as shape-shifters with an awareness that the theaters staged and marketed new fashions in clothes through actors and audience alike. Henry Fitzgeffrey decries both the unpatriotic luxury of an audience whose fashions come from Turkey, Spain, and France and the extent to which such luxury bankrupts the young gallant. David Farley-Hills in his book Jacobean Drana: A Critical Survey of the Professional Drama, 1600-25, (p. 138) says that: 'Fitzgeffrey was a hostile commentator who impugns Webster's style and his laboriousness, but has nothing to say about unorthodoxy - the fact that he complains about the crabbed, obscure style, however, gives more credence to my understanding of Middleton's praise of Webster's 'plainness''. D.C. Gunby described Fitzgeffrey as a Webster's enemy: ' An enemy, Henry Fitzjeffrey of Lincoln's Inn, has recorded a vivid, if malicious, impression of 'crabbed (Websterio / The play-wright, cartwright)' in a poem called 'Notes from Blackfryers', printed in Certain Elegies done by Sundry Excellent Wits (London, 1917). [Fitzgeffrey, Henry, Satyres: and Satyricall Epigrams: With Certaine Observations at Black-Fryers: By H: F: London: Printed by Edw: Allde, for Miles Patrich [etc.] 1617[6, 101] p. Preliminaries omitted.] elegy: (GK "lament") An elegy is a poem of lamentation for the death. In Greek and Latin poetry, elegies were poems written in alternating pentameters (five feet) and hexameters (six feet), called elegiac meter. A mourning or lamentation poem, usually of reflective nature, though not always about a specific dead person. tragedy: (esp. in classical and Renaissance) a play in which the protagonist, usually a man of importance and outstanding personal qualities, falls to disaster through the combination of a personal failing and circumstances with which he cannot deal. Has a wide literary application (drama and novel) in which is portrayed the career and downfall of the protagonist (often an heroic figure). comedy: (In clasical literature) a play in which the main characters and motive triumph over adversity. A drama which ends in happiness for its characters after a period of trouble. Comedy has its origins in the Greece of the fifth century BC. Images in John Webster's life: In this page are all the addresses of all the web pages we have taken the imagenes from. Electronic... biography: In this page are all the addresses of all the web pages we have found about Webster's biography and the books used for the dates about the playwright. Webster's Works: In this page is a list of Webster's Works. An Excellent Actor: The text can be found in the Oxford Text Archive, New and choice characters, of some seuerall authors [Electronic resource] : together with that exquisite and vnmatcht poem, The wife, written by Syr Thomas Overbury (1581-1613), transcribed by David Charles Gunby, Oxford University Computing Services. Freely available for non-commercial use provided that this header is included in its entirety with any copy distributed Transcribed from: The complete works of John Webster / edited by F.L. Lucas. -- London : Chatto & Windus, 1927. -- 4 v .
Oxford Text Archive
New and choice characters, of some seuerall authors [Electronic resource] : together with that exquisite and vnmatcht poem, The wife, written by Syr Thomas Overbury.
Overbury, Thomas, Sir, 1581-1613
TRANSCRIBED: Gunby, D. C. (David Charles)
Oxford University Computing Services
Freely available for non-commercial use provided that this header is included in its entirety with any copy distributed
Transcribed from: The complete works of John Webster / edited by F.L. Lucas. -- London : Chatto & Windus, 1927. -- 4 v
The Gild was originally a religious and social fraternity founded before the beginning of the fourteenth century by an association of citizens who were tailors and linen armourers. A primary interest in the field of education is Merchant Taylor's School founded in 1581, now in Northwood, Middlesex. 
30 Threadneedle Street, Bank
London, EC2R 8JB
Tel: 0207 450 4445
'The White Devil: or the tragedy of... Brachiano, with the life and death of Vittoria Corombona, a tragedy by Webster, written between 1609 and 1612, when it was published. The duke of Brachiano, husband of Isabella, the sister of Francisco, duke of Florence, is weary of her and in love with Vittoria, wife of Camillo. The Machiavellian Flamineo, Vittoria's brother, helps Brachiano to seduce her, and contrives (at her suggestion, delivered indirectly in a dream) the death of Camillo: Brachiano causes Isabella to be poisoned. Vittoria is tried for adultery and murder in the celebrated central arraignment scene (III. ii), and defends herself with great spirit; Lamb's phrase for her manner was 'innocence-resembling boldness', and Hazlitt found in her 'that forced and practised presence of mind' of the hardened offender, pointing out that she arouses sympathy partly through the hypocrisy of her accusers. She is sentenced to confinement in 'a house of penitent whores', whence she is carried off by Brachiano, who marries her. Flamineo quarrels with his younger brother, the virtuous Marcello, and kills him; he dies in the arms of their mother Cornelia, who later, driven out of her wits by grief, sings the dirge 'Call for the robin redbreast, and the wren', a scene which elicits from Flamineo a speech of remorse. ('I have a strange thing in me to the which cannot give a name, without it be Compassion.') Meanwhile Francisco, at the prompting of Isabella's ghost (see Revenge Tragedy) avenges her death by poisoning Brachiano, and Vittoria and Flamineo, both of whom die Stoic deaths, are murdered by his dependants. Whether or not Vittoria qualifies as a tragic heroine has been much debated.' (from Xrefer The White Devil, The Oxford Companion to English Literature)
'Webster, who never visited Italy, based The Duchess of Malfi on a scandal of the early sixteenth century, which he encountered in various sensationalized English, French, and Italian accounts. But over the basic narrative Webster drew the veil of his dark imagination, and he enhanced the horrors of his borrowed story to set off the figure of the duchess, one of the freest and most positive women in all English drama. In This respect, he quite reversed the attitude of his sources. Most of them condemn the Duchess as headstrong and libidinous. Webster boldly asserts her right to choose a husband without regard to her family or the codes of her social class. And he clearly invites us to admire both the assured sensitivity of her impulses and the perfect self-command with which she meets her fate.' (from The Norton Anthology of English Literature, ed. by M.H. Abrams, W.W. Norton & Company, London, 1993, p. 1281).
'The Tragedy of the Dutchesse of Malfy', by Webster, written 1612/13, printed 1623. The story is taken from one of Bandello's novelles, through Painter's Palace of Pleasure, and also shows the influence of Sidney's Arcadia.The duchess, a high-spirited and high-minded widow, reveals her love for the honest Antonio, steward at her court, and secretly marries him, despite the warnings of her brothers, Ferdinand, duke of Calabria, and the Cardinal, and immediately after informing them that she has no intention of remarrying. Their resistance appears to be induced by consideration for their high blood, and by, as Ferdinand later asserts, a desire to inherit her property; there is also a strong suggestion of Ferdinand's repressed incestuous desire for her. The brothers place in her employment as a spy the cynical ex-galley-slave Bosola, who betrays her to them; she and Antonio fly and separate. She is captured and is subjected by Ferdinand and Bosola to fearful mental tortures, including the sight of the feigned corpse of her husband and the attendance of a group of madmen; finally she is strangled with two of her children and Cariola, her waiting woman. Retribution overtakes the murderers: Ferdinand goes mad, imagining himself a wolf ('A very pestilent disease ... they call licanthropia'); the Cardinal is killed by the now remorseful Bosola, and Bosola by Ferdinand. Bosola has already killed Antonio, mistaking him for the Cardinal. The humanity and tenderness of the scenes between the Duchess, Antonio, and their children; the pride and dignity of the Duchess in her suffering ('I am Duchesse of Malfy still'); and individual lines such as the celebrated 'Cover her face: Mine eyes dazell: she di'd yong' have long been admired, but until recently critics have been less happy about the overall structure, the abrupt changes in tone and the bloodbath of the last act; 20th-cent. critics and directors have been more sympathetic towards the satire and the black farce in the play, and there have been many notable revivals, emphasizing T. S. Eliot's point that Webster's 'verse is essentially dramatic verse, written for the theatre by a man with a very acute sense of the theatre' (1941)' .(from Xrefer The Duchess of Malfi, The Oxford Companion to English Literature).
The plot contrasts the careers of the virtuous and idle apprentices, Golding and Quicksilver, of the goldsmith Touchstone; and the fates of his two daughters, the modest Mildred, who marries the industrious Golding, and the immodest Gertrude who, in order to ride in her own coach, marries the penniless adventurer Sir Petronel
Flash. Golding soon rises to the dignity of a deputy alderman, while Sir Petronel, having sent off his lady in a coach to an imaginary castle of his and filched her dowry, sets off for Virginia, accompanied by the prodigal Quicksilver, who has robbed his master. They are wrecked on the Isle of Dogs, and brought up before Golding, the deputy alderman. After some days in prison, where their mortifications lead them to repent, they are released at Golding's intercession. (from Xrefer Eastward Hoe, The Oxford Companion to English Literature, Margaret Drabble and Oxford University Press 1995).
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