Maxwell, Lynn (Author)
“Wax Magic and The Duchess of Malfi” argues that wax magic provides the best way to understand how the Duchess is affected by the presentation of the wax corpses representing her husband and children as a kind of torturous spectacle. The article reads John Webster's play alongside historical accounts of wax magic, especially the 1578 attack on Queen Elizabeth. While Ferdinand's attack on his sister is not intended as a magical attack, wax magic proves a powerful conceptual model for how art can impact the early modern subject through sympathetic identifications that trouble the boundaries between subjects and objects. Ultimately, the essay argues that both the success of Ferdinand's spectacle and the power of theater itself can be better understood through the possibilities of wax magic. Keywords Duchess of Malfi, Webster, wax, magic, witchcraft, theatrical practices, art, gender, Ferdinand, the Duchess
...More
Book
Ulinka Rublack;
(2017)
The Astronomer and the Witch: Johannes Kepler's Fight for his Mother
(/isis/citation/CBB283728684/)
Book
Donato Verardi;
(2018)
La scienza e i segreti della natura a Napoli nel Rinascimento: La magia naturale di Giovan Battista Della Porta
(/isis/citation/CBB944005794/)
Book
Schulte, Rolf;
(2009)
Man as Witch: Male Witches in Central Europe
(/isis/citation/CBB001230872/)
Book
Clark, Stuart;
(2001)
Languages of Witchcraft: Narrative, Ideology and Meaning in Early Modern Culture
(/isis/citation/CBB000102012/)
Book
Coudert, Allison P.;
(2011)
Religion, Magic, and Science in Early Modern Europe and America
(/isis/citation/CBB001201259/)
Book
Bever, Edward Watts Morton;
(2008)
The Realities of Witchcraft and Popular Magic in Early Modern Europe: Culture, Cognition, and Everyday Life
(/isis/citation/CBB001232115/)
Book
Floyd-Wilson, Mary;
(2013)
Occult Knowledge, Science, and Gender on the Shakespearean Stage
(/isis/citation/CBB001552908/)
Chapter
Dupré, Sven;
(2008)
Images in the Air: Optical Games, Magic and Imagination
(/isis/citation/CBB000952939/)
Article
Hunter, Michael;
(2011)
The Royal Society and the Decline of Magic
(/isis/citation/CBB001220414/)
Thesis
Reese, Garth D., Jr.;
(2010)
The Theomagical Reformation of Thomas Vaughan: Magic and the Occult in Early Modern British Theology
(/isis/citation/CBB001561117/)
Book
Salvatore Califano;
(2015)
Storia dell'alchimia: misticismo ed esoterismo all'origine della chimica moderna
(/isis/citation/CBB559415425/)
Article
Sands, Kathleen R.;
(1999)
Word and Sign in Elizabethan Conflicts with the Devil
(/isis/citation/CBB000111487/)
Book
Clucas, Stephen;
(2011)
Magic, Memory and Natural Philosophy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
(/isis/citation/CBB001033684/)
Article
Parkin, Sally;
(2006)
Witchcraft, Women's Honour and Customary Law in Early Modern Wales
(/isis/citation/CBB001030543/)
Article
Mann, Jenny C.;
(2015)
Pygmalion's Wax: “Fruitful Knowledge” in Bacon and Montaigne
(/isis/citation/CBB001422564/)
Article
Pinet, Patrice;
(2009)
Petite histoire des remèdes magnétiques
(/isis/citation/CBB000933404/)
Book
Leinkauf, Thomas;
Hartbecke, Karin;
(2005)
Der Naturbegriff in der Frühen Neuzeit: Semantische Perspektiven zwischen 1500 und 1700
(/isis/citation/CBB001020252/)
Thesis
Seitz, Jonathan;
(2006)
Natural or Supernatural? Witchcraft, Inquisition and Views of Nature at the Dawn of the Scientific Revolution
(/isis/citation/CBB001560867/)
Book
Paul B. Moyer;
(2020)
Detestable and Wicked Arts: New England and Witchcraft in the Early Modern Atlantic World
(/isis/citation/CBB859290445/)
Article
Jobe, Thomas Harmon;
(1981)
The devil in Restoration science: The Glanvill-Webster witchcraft debate
(/isis/citation/CBB000010135/)
Be the first to comment!