Reference > Cambridge History > The Drama to 1642, Part Two > Tourneur and Webster > The last period
  The Dutchesse Of Malfy: its source and date; advance in representation and motif Appius and Virginia  

CONTENTS · VOLUME CONTENTS · INDEX OF ALL CHAPTERS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume VI. The Drama to 1642, Part Two.

VII. Tourneur and Webster.

§ 11. The last period.


From the tragedies we pass to the closing period of Webster’s activity (1618? to his death). The plays which would seem to belong to this period are five: The Guise (mentioned in the dedication to The Devils Law-case), and A Late Murther of the Sonne upon the Mother (in partnership with Ford, 1624) both, unfortunately, lost; The Devils Law-case, published in 1623; Appius and Virginia, in 1654; and A Cure for a Cuckold, in 1661. None of the three which survive approaches the level of the two tragedies. All, however, contain occasional flashes of the genius which created The White Divel and The Dutchesse Of Malfy, though rather of its poetic, than its dramatic, quality. Save in Appius, which owes much to the Roman tragedies of Shakespeare, Webster is now working under quite other, and less inspiring, influences. With him, as with other dramatists of the period, the star of Fletcher is in the ascendant.   26

CONTENTS · VOLUME CONTENTS · INDEX OF ALL CHAPTERS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
  The Dutchesse Of Malfy: its source and date; advance in representation and motif Appius and Virginia  
 
Google
Click here to shop the Bartleby Bookstore.
Welcome · Press · Advertising · Linking · Terms of Use · © 2008 Bartleby.com