i read it all but hardly have a clue what’s going on ( )

I don't know what John Webster was on, but I want some of it. His plotting is so much more populist than Shakespeare, which ordinarily I would count as a mark against him, yet 'The Duchess' has a rare, guttural power that elevates it above the rest of Webster's output. A joy. ( )

Read in preparation for an Open University course.

Again (just also read 'Othello') lots of plotting, deceit and killing. Fascinating that the work 'puke' (for vomit) has been around for 400 years - who knew? ( )

Other sins only speak, murder shreiks out:
The element of water moistens the earth,
But blood flies upwards and bedews the heavens.

Oh mercy, revenge upon the cursed Vengeful in five sumptuous acts of poetry, racy bits and bloodshed. The initial revengers are a creepy pair of powerful brothers miffed that their sis has moved on from bereavement and is now happily shacking up. They enlist the world's most literate assassin for the wet work. I began this a month ago and made it half way. I started over and completed the piece this evening. Touch your caps to the lyrical wizardry of John Webster. Extra points should be awarded for use of a poisoned book. ( )

When the Duchess of Malfi is widowed, her two brothers are insistent that she not remarry, leaving her fortune intact for them. She remarries, but in secret, to a commoner, and they keep their secret long enough for her to bear three children. Eventually, though, they are betrayed, and by a trusted friend, the desperately ambitious Bosola. The play reminded me of Othello, being similar in the sheer quantity of murders and in increasingly overwrought behavior of everyone involved.

This was a surprisingly easy play to read. The play jumps forwards in time without explanation and the character development is minimal, but it's certainly entertaining. ( )