John Webster

Often a play is written round a poem or series of poems, as will be seen in the course of this book.

This use of existing material exceeds the practice of Western dramatists, but it must be remembered that if we were to read Webster, for example, in editions annotated as minutely as the Noh plays, we should discover that he was far more addicted to borrowing than we had been aware.

It seems to me that in the finest plays this use of existing material is made with magnificent effect and fully justifies itself.

The reference which I have just made to dance ballads brings us to another question.

For the action, in the commonest class of play, does not take place before our eyes, but is lived through again in mimic and recital by the ghost of one of the participants in it.

Thus we get no possibility of crude realities, a vision of life indeed, but painted with the colors of memory, longing or regret.

In a paper read before the Japan Society in 1919, I tried to illustrate this point by showing, perhaps in too fragmentary and disjointed a manner, how the theme of Webster's Duchess of Malfi would have been treated by a no writer.

I said then, and the Society kindly allows me to repeat those remarks, the plot of the play is thus summarized by Rupert Brooke in his John Webster and the Elizabethan Drama.

You had, uh, Christopher Marlowe.

Uh, w- they also had Queen Elizabeth, Fran- Francis Bacon, Ben Jonson, and John Webster.

Yeah.

Do you suppose it's because he-- it is so exceptional what he did, and that he was a commoner? I mean, he-- I guess he had a grammar school education, but that's it.

Suspicious deaths of intellectuals or politically engaged artists were sometimes masked as accidents or tavern brawls.

For example, John Webster's own mysterious death in 1634, though not directly comparable, illustrates the precariousness of literary figures operating near power centers.

In modern times, some biographers have proposed that Marlowe's supposed homosexuality contributed to his downfall, but they rely heavily on secondary interpretations rather than primary evidence.

The real question remains: were we looking at an individual who was simply caught in the crossfire of a society intolerant of deviation or a person targeted by those wielding state power? It is this tension between personal narrative and political intrigue that makes Marlowe's story enduringly fascinated one that challenges us to question the motives behind recorded history.

You had all these brilliant playwrights working at the exact same time.

Christopher Marlowe, Ben Johnson, John Webster.

But Diamond argues that if you look at the output of William Shakespeare, specifically a masterpiece like Hamlet, it just stands completely apart.

OK, so he's saying it's completely singular.

Often a play is written round a poem or series of poems, as will be seen in the course of this book.

This use of existing material exceeds the practice of Western dramatists, but it must be remembered that if we were to read Webster, for example, in editions annotated as minutely as the Noh plays, we should discover that he was far more addicted to borrowing than we had been aware.

It seems to me that in the finest plays this use of existing material is made with magnificent effect and fully justifies itself.

The reference which I have just made to dance ballads brings us to another question.

Thus we get no possibility of crude realities.

A vision of life indeed, but painted with the colors of memory, longing or regret.

In a paper read before the Japan Society in 1919, I tried to illustrate this point by showing, perhaps in too fragmentary and disjointed a manner, how the theme of Webster's Duchess of Malfi would have been treated by a no writer.

I said then, and the Society kindly allows me to repeat those remarks, the plot of the play is thus summarized by Rupert Brooke in his John Webster and the Elizabethan Drama.