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The duchess of malfi by john webster5/28/2023 ![]() ![]() From the very start of the play, we are told that death and suffering have the potential to cascade downward from the top of a government. a perfect court, he says, should spread goodness throughout a rustic, but the structure of the state is such naturally it’s vulnerable to poisoning by way of corruption or abuse of power. The king is additionally surrounded by the council and other people who are unafraid to warn him and speak their minds.Īntonio’s opening praise of the French court sets up a comparison to the Italian court, which contemporary audiences would have related to sophisticated corruption. ![]() Delio asks what Antonio considered his time in France, and Antonio responds that the French king is ruling well by ridding himself of flatterers and by treating his court sort of a fountain good flows throughout the land when it’s properly functioning, but if the fountain is poisoned near the top, death and disease flow to the country. Antonio, the Duchess’s steward, has just returned from the French court to Amalfi, where his friend and confidant Delio greets him. The play begins at the Duchess of Malfi’s palace in Amalfi. ![]()
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