Courtly banter in The Duchess of Malfi (iii.ii.1-57): not “so merry”

Situated midway through the play in the Duchess’s bedchamber, act III scene ii is the fulcrum of The Duchess of Malfi. The Duchess enters the scene and her bedchamber a free woman, she leaves it a virtual prisoner. Coming after two acts that have covered several years since the beginning of the play, this intense night scene unfolds in a swift succession of sequences, all revolving around the Duchess. This essay focuses on the first sequence, a domestic, seemingly light-hearted moment (lines 1-57) that brings together the Duchess, her husband, Antonio, and her maid, Cariola. Looking at the use of courtly rhetoric in a scene framed by references to personal appearance (jewellery and hairdo), this article suggests that the impression of happiness and the tropes of a wooing scene are undermined by a sense of displacement and inappropriateness. John Webster draws on recognisable codes to subvert them: the mythological references and conventions of courtly discourse are there, but in the wrong place. Words, props and gestures are transformed and distorted.