The White Devil

by John Webster, Lara Bovilsky (Editor)

This fully re-edited, modernised play text is accompanied by insightful commentary notes, while its lively introduction provides an essential contextual grounding in the court scandals, anti-Catholic sentiment and Senecan drama that formed a backdrop to Webster's tragedy. Exploring the challenges of staging this highly melodramatic play, Lara Bovilsky guides you through the most interesting points of its rich performance history, and analyses the onslaught of recent productions with race-conscious and regendered casts. Analysing its masterful poetry, she shows how the work can be harnessed to engage in contemporary social debates about privacy, torture, surveillance, and personal freedom, and empowers you to do likewise.

Supplemented by a plot summary, annotated bibliography and a companion website providing thought-provoking podcasts, production images, useful web links and sample questions and essay ideas, this edition is the most enlightening and engaging you will find.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Classics, Theatre, Fiction, 17th Century, Literature

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1612

About the author

John Webster (c.1580 – c.1634) was an English Jacobean dramatist best known for his tragedies The White Devil (1612) and The Duchess of Malfi (1613), which are often regarded as masterpieces of the early 17th-century English stage. He was a contemporary of William Shakespeare.

Librarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

T.S. Eliot aptly said that Webster was “a very great literary and dramatic genius directed toward chaos." I love this play almost as much as I love The Duchess of Malfi, but I find both of them difficult to write about. Each scene sings with poetic power and pulses with dramatic effect, but what themes organize this errant music, what lies at the center of this tumult of rhythmic discord?

I don't mean to say that the plays are without structure. Take The White Devil, for example. It is about the adulterous love between Vittoria and Duke Brachiano, and the first half--up to the magnificent trial scene (III.i)--presents the events leading to the murder of Vittoria's husband, and the last half explores the consequences of the murder of Brachiano's wife. After that, though, everything becomes cloudy and nebulous.

Whenever a Webster character makes a fine speech, we are never sure if she is truthful or lying. Filled with flashing poetry or vicious witticisms, the speech is the center of everything, speech is what enchants and compels. Is Vittoria's brother Flamineo a cold-blooded assassin, a posturing lunatic, or just a deeply disappointed man? Is Vittoria herself a heartless murderer, a complicit adulterer, or merely a woman swayed by love and circumstance? We cannot be sure, yet somehow Webster leads us to place our faith in the language itself: its passion, its metaphorical richness, its magnificent gestures. And this limited commitment of ours gives us one small thing to believe in, even now while we--like Webster's characters--are awash in chaos, affirming our unfathomable selves, avoiding our unknowable fates.

Here follow three examples of Webster's art.

Monticelso, Vittoria's prosecutor, discourses on the word “whore”:

I 'll give their perfect character. They are first,
Sweetmeats which rot the eater; in man's nostrils
Poison'd perfumes. They are cozening alchemy;
Shipwrecks in calmest weather. What are whores!
Cold Russian winters, that appear so barren,
As if that nature had forgot the spring.
They are the true material fire of hell:
Worse than those tributes i' th' Low Countries paid,
Exactions upon meat, drink, garments, sleep,
Ay, even on man's perdition, his sin.
They are those brittle evidences of law,
Which forfeit all a wretched man's estate
For leaving out one syllable. What are whores!
They are those flattering bells have all one tune,
At weddings, and at funerals. Your rich whores
Are only treasures by extortion fill'd,
And emptied by curs'd riot. They are worse,
Worse than dead bodies which are begg'd at gallows,
And wrought upon by surgeons, to teach man
Wherein he is imperfect. What's a whore!
She 's like the guilty counterfeited coin,
Which, whosoe'er first stamps it, brings in trouble
All that receive it.


Vittoria defends herself:

...all your strict-combined heads,
Which strike against this mine of diamonds,
Shall prove but glassen hammers: they shall break.
These are but feigned shadows of my evils.
Terrify babes, my lord, with painted devils,
I am past such needless palsy. For your names
Of 'whore' and 'murderess', they proceed from you,
As if a man should spit against the wind,
The filth returns in 's face...
Condemn you me for that the duke did love me?
So may you blame some fair and crystal river,
For that some melancholic distracted man
Hath drown'd himself in 't...
Sum up my faults, I pray, and you shall find,
That beauty and gay clothes, a merry heart,
And a good stomach to feast, are all,
All the poor crimes that you can charge me with.
In faith, my lord, you might go pistol flies,
The sport would be more noble.


Flamineo--ducal secretary, pander, and murderer--faces death:

I do not look
Who went before, nor who shall follow me;
No, at my self I will begin the end.
While we look up to heaven, we confound
Knowledge with knowledge. Oh, I am in a mist!...
I recover like a spent taper, for a flash,
And instantly go out...
'Tis well yet there 's some goodness in my death;
My life was a black charnel. I have caught
An everlasting cold; I have lost my voice
Most irrecoverably. Farewell, glorious villains.
This busy trade of life appears most vain,
Since rest breeds rest, where all seek pain by pain.
Let no harsh flattering bells resound my knell;
Strike, thunder, and strike loud, to my farewell!

[Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A startling classic play from London, 1612. ‘‘Tis better to be fortunate than wise.

Of course, no one in this play is either fortunate or wise, caught in the passions of jealousy as good as Shakespeare and as bloody and dramatic, as well.

For a modern reader with modern sensibilities, I’m shocked and amazed how this play goes from being an instant cancelable trope to a deeply heartfelt condemnation of the roles of both sexes.

And, even better, it’s a rousingly good tragedy.

[Esdaile · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Webster's language is extraordinary. In the peculiarly special field of grotesque melancholy and pessimism, he achieves a style which is not matched in Shakespeare or indeed by anyone, although Beddoes tried, years later. He did not seem much consoled by thoughts of an afterlife, death taking the form of journeys into a sinister and nebulous unknown country, although elsewhere he compares the soul in the body to a lark in a cage. The most memorable quality of Webster is his language: highly characteristic, grotesque, abundant in metaphor and simile, florid, baroque. "Thy sins show like leprosy, the whiter the fouler". A resounding epithet for an impending death: "I have caught an eternal cold". "I'll stuff thy throat with winter plums" a superb-grotesque description of shooting someone to death. Webster is so grotesque he is funny and it surprises me that more people are not struck by his humour (in this he resembles Bosch, whose demons are surely intented to be comic figures). The plot is convoluted (The Duchess of Malfi" does better in this respect) but it is the language that counts. Anyone deaf to the poetry of "The White Devil" would be hard put to perceive much merit in the play, for without its poetry it would read like an extravagent, exaggerated Gothic romp. Thanks to the language however, the play is, as someone else said here,a Renaissance gem.

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lord, this was macabre!

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

From BBC Radio 3 - Drama on 3:
First performed in 1612, John Webster's revenge play is here set in a 1950s underworld of shifting alliances and sudden violence.
Adapted and directed by Marc Beeby

The wealthy Brachiano conceives a violent passion for the married Vittoria Corombona. Her brother Flamineo, Brachiano's secretary, plots to bring his sister and his master together, in the hope of advancing his own career. Their plans are impeded by the return to Rome of Isabella - Brachiano's wife, and sister to the powerful Francisco. Desperate for Vittoria, Brachiano arranges to have both Isabella and Vittoria's husband murdered. And in so doing makes an implacable enemy of the deadly Francisco...
The play was first performed in 1612, but this production sets the action in a murky underworld of the 1950s - a world that seeks to hide its shifting alliances, betrayals and sudden violence beneath a veneer of honor and respectability.

[Georgie’s Book Nook · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven’t read a play in a while, and I really gave myself a challenge with this one!!

Webster’s language is beautiful, and can be really funny at times. He can play with words so well, yet still get across what is happening, which I think some people can struggle with when reading Elizabethan and Jacobean plays.

I did sort of lose track near to the end (not sure if it was just me and I missed something) as some of the events and reasonings for people doing things didn’t make sense, but sometimes in plays like this it doesn’t always show a lot of lead up.

There are some great speeches in this, so I’ll be keeping this on my bookshelf if I want to try out a new monologue for my acting 🙌🏼

[Kyle C]

A ridiculous play, full of magic, murder, ghosts, palace intrigue, a homicide trial, a papal election, a duke in black face—all a series of double-crossings, broken oaths and revenge killings. Bracciano is having an affair with Vittoria, the sister of his attendant, Flamineo; he kills his wife, Isabella, and his mistress's husband, Camillo, by means of a conjurer who poisons them through a mirror; his attendant then kills his own brother, Marcello, in an unexpected altercation while Francisco, the duke of Florence and brother of Bracciano's deceased wife, then disguises himself as a Moor, and kills him with a poisoned helmet. Almost everyone in the end is left dead, and the audience is left wondering who is the titular "white devil"? Is it Bracciano, the adulterer, who orchestrates the dual homicide and resorts to "negromancy"? Is it his mad attendant, Flamineo, conspiring to steal his master's fortune? Is it the newly elected pope, Monticelso, now dressed in white but carrying his black book of noblemen's crimes and diabolically manipulating those around him? Is it Zanche, the Moorish servant of Vittoria, who plans to rob her lady and so "wash the Ethiop white" with her fortune? Every character is his own devil and, as Flamineo quips, "'Tis not so great a cunning as men think/ To raise the devil, for here's one up already./ The greatest cunning were to lay him down." It is a play bedeviled with Machiavellian plotters and wicked henchman—and the question is not who the devil is but when he will be killed.

It's a desultory drama without any clear structure and the characters' motives and behavior often seem unpredictable and totally implausible—it seems like the garish sort of melodrama that Hamlet put on as a parody in 1600, twelve years before Webster's play. The strongest scenes are Isabella and Vittoria's speeches—unapologetic orations in defense of their virtue and innocence, with complete disregard for the chauvinistic onlookers who mock and dismiss them.

[Timothy Lissimore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Come, come my lord, untie thy folded thoughts
And let them dangle loose as a bride's hair.

Through darkness diamonds spread their richest light.

Some fabulous poetry in this bloody revenge tragedy. There's not the penetrating depth and scope of a Shakespearean tragedy, but I enjoyed the novelty of a new voice (I'm not especially familiar with Webster's work). A very entertaining and rich read.

Look you his codpiece is stuck full of pins
with pearls o' th' head of them..

I never did wash my mouth with mine own praise for fear of getting a stinking breath..

Some great one-liners.

Funnily enough I have just read a short story by Stendhal also about the tragic beauty Vittoria Accoramboni. What a perilous place was 16th century Italy.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5
I read this for English Literature, and it was quite a nice change.

1. The characters of Flamineo (a really intriguing villain!), Brachiano and Vittoria were probably the most interesting - they were characterised in very precise ways through their speech. I feel like analysing these characters and their motives is going to be quite interesting.
2. The actual plot is really complex and fascinating - though I found it quite complicated to get my head around at first (so I had to use some study guides/summaries), after reading it’s a great one to think about, particularly with the themes, which I'm interested to study in more detail.
3. The language is hard - luckily with my edition there were some footnotes which explained some of the really obscure language, but I still had to look up some other stuff. So it took me a while to read and it was something I had to think about in more depth than usual - definitely not the kind of book I’d recommend to read for pleasure unless you like constantly searching for stuff. It’s not a ‘sit back and relax’ kind of book, but I suppose the language used makes it good for analysis when I have to write about it in my exam...
4. Gothic! (Which is what my exam will be about...) Such an exciting genre, with themes and motifs of murder, mystery, lust, deceit, evil, devils etc.
5. Overall I think a 3/5 is a fair rating to give this book because the characterisation is great, the plot is really interesting and I think I’ll enjoy looking at things in more detail when I start analysing. However, as a read outside of studying it didn't really have a huge level of enjoyment and I wouldn't necessary recommend it to everyone because of that.

[Billy Degge]

Webster's a mad cunt but we're lucky he willingly gazed into the abyss for us all.

[AliLikesToTalk · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read for my class… eh

[Bettie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Flamineo ..... Patrick Kennedy
Vittoria ..... Anna Maxwell Martin
Brachiano ..... Shaun Dingwall
Francisco ..... Peter Wight
Monticelso ..... Sean Baker
Ludovico ..... Harry Myers
Isabella ..... Christine Kavanagh
Gasparo ..... David Seddon
Camillo ..... Sam Dale
Cornelia ..... Frances de la Tour
Marcello ..... Michael Shelford
Giovanni ..... Lloyd Thomas
Hortensio ..... Tony Bell
Zanche ..... Pippa Bennett Warner
Dr Julio ..... Jude Akuwudike

Adapted and directed by Marc Beeby


BBC Description: The wealthy Brachiano conceives a violent passion for the married Vittoria Corombona. Her brother Flamineo, Brachiano's secretary, plots to bring his sister and his master together, in the hope of advancing his own career. Their plans are impeded by the return to Rome of Isabella - Brachiano's wife, and sister to the powerful Francisco. Desperate for Vittoria, Brachiano arranges to have both Isabella and Vittoria's husband murdered. And in so doing makes an implacable enemy of the deadly Francisco...

The play was first performed in 1612, but this production sets the action in a murky underworld of the 1950s - a world that seeks to hide its shifting alliances, betrayals and sudden violence beneath a flaky veneer of honour and Broadcast on:
BBC Radio 3, 8:45pm Sunday 15th August 2010

[Steph · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘The White Devil,’ written in 1612, was in fact based on the sensational story of the murder of Vittoria Accoramboni in 1585 and the events that it depicts are indeed shocking even by the standards of modern sensibilities. It has just about everything you could desire for a modern scandal of the kind one would expect to appear splashed for weeks across the front page of any of today’s tabloids: infidelity, sex, prostitution, murder, political corruption, law trials, and, of course, revenge.

Essentially the story begins with Vittoria, who, coming from an impoverished family is seeking any means possibly to secure a rise in her wealth and status even at the cost of her (evidently rather lose) morals and (even more pliable) body. She sees this possibility in the shape of Duke Brachiano although there is a slight impediment to her plans in the shape of his wife, Isabella, and her own husband, the cumbersome Camillo. Naturally, she must secure an ally in order to affect her seduction of Brachiano and encourage him to help her to rid herself of her aging spouse and his own wife. Well, who else should she engage in her effective self-prostitution than her own utterly villainous brother, Flamineo, who is equally determined to see his family rise in stature? Naturally our villains cannot be allowed to get away with their heinous acts of slaughter. Thus following the death of Camillo, Vittoria is promptly arrested and despite a significant lack of evidence, she is tried and promptly imprisoned in a house for penitent whores.

Well now you may be thinking that I have revealed far too much of the plot for your liking and spoilt it all. Let me assure you this really is just the beginning! The play goes on to follow labyrinthine twists and turns as the villains battle for survival and the audience wait to see whether there is anyone we can truly trust or whom we wish to finally be saved.

Many may be thinking that this sensationalist, tabloid style play that includes a lengthy law scene may not appeal at all to a modern audience. However, what it reminded me of was Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Stephen Ward,’ which I saw a week ago at the Aldwych Theatre. This was a fascinating and really engaging depiction of the Profumo affair of 1963 which dominated the headlines. The production itself and performances were utterly superb as the scenes shifted swiftly between depictions of the shady sexual shenanigans of the politicians in this era and then juxtaposed these with the innocence of the girls Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davis enjoying the simple pass times of a teenager in Ward’s flat. Racy, pacy and thoroughly engaging, what productions like ‘The White Devil’ and ‘Stephen Ward’ reveal is the constant public fascination with figures in power as well as the continual connection between political corruption and sexual transgression.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL8zY8...]

I would not say that ‘Stephen Ward’ is Webber’s best musical – it is subtle and incredibly contemporary in both style and topic, but it lacks the usual Webber show stopping number and the ambiguity in the character portrayal (which was quite deliberate) made it difficult to sympathise with any one individual with perhaps the exception of Valerie Hobson, Profumo’s long suffering and forgiving wife. In fact, the musical style itself felt more reminiscent of Gilbert and Sullivan in the discordant, undulating nature of many of the set pieces and the manner in which songs felt almost spoken at times. It reminded me a little of their ‘Trial by Jury’ for instance in the final scenes of court room drama. I don’t think it will be a long lasting Webber hit in the manner of ‘Phantom of the Opera’ but it was certainly interesting, at time humorous and at times, deeply moving. I know this has been a significant digression from ‘The White Devil’ but nonetheless, I think it shows the continued connection between theatre and politics and the way in which drama can be used to satirise and expose as well as entertain.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Nm0K4...]

Like ‘Stephen Ward,’, ‘The White Devil’ is a brave and exciting play that really is one of those dramas that would be far better seen on stage than read as the plot is so complex and often hard to follow when simply read. Much of the drama is naturally lost in not actually witnessing the horror of what is being depicted and I can well imagine how compelling this would be to watch whether in the seventeenth or twenty-first centuries. There is something truly chilling about the characters many of whom seem to have virtually nothing about them that is redeeming. It reminded me a little of Goneril and Regan’s confederates in ‘King Lear’ where, with the exception of Albany, the sisters and their compatriots seem to embody all that is evil and self-serving in the name of sexual satisfaction and power.

For me, this did not stand up to Shakespeare, with whom given the age in which the play was written, comparisons are perhaps inevitable. It lacks the subtly of characterisation or the psychological depth of his best creations in my view and as such (with perhaps the exception of Vittoria especially given her wonderful courtroom speech that seems to pre-empt feminism by several centuries), they become rather more like pantomime villains than truly as terrifying as the likes of Iago with his ‘motiveless malignity’ or Tamora and her vengeful hatred. Nonetheless, this is a truly fascinating play that is well worth reading and it is great shame that it is not staged more often (the last time I can find seems to be some 18 years ago by the RSC). So bring back ‘The White Devil’ back and let us see it in its full sensational glory please, I am sure it will appeal to public sensibilities just as much today as it did over 400 years ago.

[Camille · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why do universities only want to make us read and study very depressing and tragic stuff

[j a z z y · Rating 3 out of 5]

infidelity. murder. jealousy. magic.

what more could you really want from a Jacobean tragedy

[Lucy Barnhouse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deeply bizarre and deliciously entertaining, but/and for what it's worth, I can't imagine reading it without at least some background in medieval and early modern theories of medicine and alchemy. I couldn't help thinking that Webster mocks audience expectations of a moral conclusion; the unscrupulous Flamineo and the fierce Vittoria are much more likable than the boring "just ruler" at the end, who seems to have learned all of his ideas out of conduct manuals.

[Emily Weatherburn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I spent a long time reading and studying this play, and with each second that I spent on it, I enjoyed it a little bit more. I say this because, when I first read this play through, I hated it. Then I read it again and I simply disliked it, and then I read it through slowly, analysing every page. It was only then that I really came to appreciate The White Devil for what it is: a work of art.

The story is a little odd, and it’s not quite up to the standards of Webster’s more popular play, The Duchess of Malfi, but the ideas behind it are incredible. There are so many intricate links between the character of this play, and so many societal inversions, such as the evil cardinal (a repeated trope from The Duchess of Malfi) and the titular white devil, whoever that may be.

It’s a little hard to follow at first, but it’s probably an easier read than some of Shakespeare’s plays; unfortunately, plays are one of the few things that don’t belong in a book-format. The Duchess of Malfi was made to be performed, so if you really want to experience this fantastic story, that’s probably the route you should take.

[ML Character · Rating 5 out of 5]

ahahahahahahahhaahhahaa, OUT OF CONTROL.
A list:
-two people murdered in dumb shows
-one kisses a poisoned painting and the other is killed in a trumped up *gymnastics accident* ?! By being bounced on his head a bunch of times by assailants?!?
-Vittoria.
-Vittoria sent against her will to a penitents 'nunnery with a Mother Superior who DGAF
-the disguises and terrible race politics enacted (there is weird race and fake raced disguising)
-a fake out murder with a gun loaded with blanks
-the mother (Cornelia) totally stealing Ophelia's Hamlet lines
-one son murders his brother in front of their mom... while more or less pimping their sister?

[David]

A wonderful companion to the non-fiction Borgias! For some reason I had never read this play though Webster’s other best-known work, The Duchess of Malfi, has been a favourite since my mid-teens. The White Devil is everything an early-17th-century revenge tragedy ought to be: superbly violent with intricate intrigue.

[Izzy · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 but i’m being generous

this was so 🥱🥱🥱. only ONE good character (vittoria obvs) and she was simply not talking enough for me. too many men. too many names. all stupid and boring.

[Nusrat · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Saffron Irons · Rating 4 out of 5]

enjoyed but basically duches of malfi 2.0 literally some lines are direct copies of malfi lines. pray for me with 10 minute presentation on monday

[Gabriella Kemp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for uni - not a fan of plays but I was hooked reading this. I really enjoyed Websters use of language especially when describing as I was able to perfectly see and understand his characters, setting etc.

[cait · Rating 3 out of 5]

reading so many things about affairs recently………..

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.7/5 🌟

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

good shit

[Ally McIntyre]

A lot more cynical and apocalyptic than its contemporaries

[Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Muy transgresora la verdad. Una buena Revenge tragedy

[Ehsan Javid]

جان وبستر نمایشنامه نویس معاصر شکسپیر که نه از حمایت ملکه و خاندان سلطنتی برخوردار بود، و نه با روح زمانه و جریان غالب درام نویسی وقت، همسو، باید هم بچشد عذاب تنهایی را...

[Highlyeccentric · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this with wildeabandon's playreading group, and ... well it sure was SOMETHING. Lots of people died in many fascinating ways.