The figure of the malcontent in The Duchess of Malfi

Malcontent• Old Fr mal (bad, ill) and content (contained,

pleased)• Character type• Discontent with social structure and other

characters• Often observes or offers commentary• Sometimes show an awareness they are in a

play• Displeased, unsettled, unhappy• Presence of too much black bile

The four humours• Black bile (melancholia)• Yellow bile (cholera)• Phlegm (phlegma)• Blood (sanguis)

A literary tradition• Cross-genre• An outsider• Jaques in As You Like It• Malvolio in Twelfth Night• Antonio in Merchant of Venice• Richard in Richard III• Edmund in Lear• Iago in Othello• Hamlet in Hamlet• Wants to change or argue with the world• Can be irritating (the spoil-sport)

Audience and the malcontent• An outsider – close to the audience• Can soliloquise– RIII– Hamlet– Edmund– Iago

• Audience becomes accomplice• Sometimes shows theatrical awareness (ie.

“Was ever a woman won!” – RIII)

Bosola as a malcontent• Complains right from the start• Exchange with Cardinal = awkward• Complains about court in general• Anger from honour or envy?– I observe his railing

Is not for simple love of piety:Indeed he rails at those things which he wants (1.1)

• Cannot be a true critic; lacks subjectivity (much like Richard, Edmund and Iago)

• Antonio: wary of melancholy. Like the bad behaviours of court, it is toxic; This foul melancholy Will poison all his goodness. (1.1)

• For him, melancholy is linked to inaction (think about current depression campaigns “get up, get out of the house”): want of actionBreeds all black malcontents, and their close rearing, Like moths in cloth, do hurt for want of wearing. (1.1)

• Melancholy is identified as a mask in the Cardinal and Ferdinand, then in Bosola

• Webster gives the malcontent a purpose.