“The ancientest nobility being but a relic of time past, and the truest…” — John Webster

“The ancientest nobility being but a relic of time past, and the truest honour indeed being for a man to confer honour on himself.”

Valuing self-made honour above inherited title · Dedication, The Duchess of Malfi

John Webster

About John Webster

c. 1580–c. 1632

John Webster, born around 1580 and probably dead by about 1632, occupies a singular place in English Renaissance drama. He is remembered above all as the author of The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, tragedies whose violent plots, dense imagery, and moral unease have made them enduring fixtures of the theatrical…

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“A great part of the grace of this, I confess, lay in action; yet can no action ever be gracious, where the decency of the language, and ingenious structure of the scene, arrive not to make up a perfect harmony.”

Insisting that dramatic excellence requires the unity of language and structure with performance · Preface, To the Reader of The Devil's Law Case

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About John Webster

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