The Duchess of Malfi

In popular culture

  • Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie (Williams, Collins Sons & Co Ltd. 1976) uses the lines Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle; she died young as the novel's central refrain.
  • A fragment of Scene 2, Act 4 of the play, with Struan Rodger as Ferdinand and Donald Burton as Bosola, is shown in the 1987 BBC TV film version of Agatha Christie's detective novel Sleeping Murder.
  • Cover Her Face by P. D. James (initial copyright 1962) uses the first part of the quote as the title and as a comment made by the first witness on the scene of a young murdered woman.
  • The Skull Beneath the Skin by P. D. James centres around an aging actress who plans to perform The Duchess of Malfi in a Victorian castle theatre. The novel takes its title from T. S. Eliot's famous characterisation of Webster's work in his poem 'Whispers of Immortality'.
  • In the culmination of John le Carré's Call for the Dead, Smiley is reported to have been quoting from The Duchess of Malfi in his delirium – "I bade thee when I was distracted of my wits go kill my dearest friend, and thou hast done it", according to Peter Guillam.
  • Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice uses the lines Cover her face. Mine eyes dazzle. She died young, as a quote from Lestat to his vampire child, Claudia.
  • Stephen Fry's novel The Stars' Tennis Balls takes its title from Bosola's line in the play.
  • Hotel by Mike Figgis involves a film crew trying to make a Dogme film of The Duchess of Malfi. The actors playing the Duchess, Antonio and Bosola are played by Saffron Burrows, Max Beesley and Heathcote Williams. The play is abbreviated and made into a 'McMalfi' script by Heathcote Williams.
  • In the novel Too Many Clients by Rex Stout, a character that does not want to tell his name quotes Other sins only speak; murder shrieks out. The quotation allows Nero Wolfe to find him.
  • In the Oxford University Film Foundation's 1982 film Privileged, the students produce and rehearse lines from the play.
  • Echo & the Bunnymen mentioned this play along with John Webster and The White Devil in their song "My White Devil" on their Porcupine album.
  • Volume 2 of Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time includes a visit to a performance of the play, where the minor character Moreland is in love with the actress playing Julia.
  • In T. H. White's novel The Once and Future King (1958), the character Cully quotes from the play: "Why, but two nights since, one met the duke 'bout midnight in a lane behind Saint Mark's Church, with the leg of a man upon his shoulder: and he howled fearfully."[29]
  • Angela Carter drew inspiration for her werewolf stories, The Company of Wolves and Wolf-Alice, in The Bloody Chamber from The Duchess of Malfi, most notably the line "hairy on the inside", but also "the howling of the wolf is music to the screech-owl", and "I'll go hunt the badger by owl-light. 'Tis a deed of darkness."[30]
  • In "Death's Shadow," season 2, episode 1 of Midsomer Murders, Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby's actress daughter, Cully, rehearses lines from the play.
  • In Ngaio Marsh's 1959 novel Singing in the Shrouds, Mr. Merryman, a retired school teacher and one of several passengers suspected of being a serial killer, argues that The Duchess of Malfi is better than Hamlet or Macbeth and that Othello is much better than all of them.
  • The first collection of New Zealand poet Alistair Te Ariki Campbell, published in 1950, was titled Mine Eyes Dazzle. The first part of the collection was a long poem for a friend who had died young, and the collection also features love poems about unattainable and beautiful women; the title of the book combined both themes, having been taken from the line: "Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle; she died young".[31]
  • Laura Purcell's novel The Whispering Muse, with its strong theme of theatrical tragedy, features troubled actress Lilith starring in a performance of The Duchess of Malfi. [32]

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