Abstract
This article surveys discourses of lycanthropy in John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi. The lycanthropic imagination underwent significant changes in the seventeenth century. With the rise of a reformed belief that emphasized rationality, werewolf discourses were wedded with medical discourses, particularly those of humoralism, and scholars believed that lycanthropy was a result of excessive black bile, or melancholy. In The Duchess of Malfi Webster follows this discursive trajectory, but his understanding redirects its development; for this playwright, who had an extensive legal education, lycanthropy is an issue raising the question of sovereignty as a lacuna formed within the constitutional body.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 89-107 |
| Number of pages | 19 |
| Journal | Parergon |
| Volume | 38 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:* This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2019S1A5A2A01036978). * I would like to express my gratitude to the anonymous reviewers of Parergon for their comments and corrections. 1 All quotations from and citations to John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi are from English Renaissance Drama: A Norton Anthology, ed. by David Bevington and others (New York: Norton, 2002).
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All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Cultural Studies
- Visual Arts and Performing Arts
- History
- Religious studies
- Literature and Literary Theory