The White Devil (New Mermaids)

An acute reader of contemporary drama and a consummate parodist,Webster achieves in his plays a density of allusion that often producesmoments of brilliant psychological insight and theatrical ingenuity.Working with the established conventions of revenge tragedy, themalcontent youngster and dark sexual intrigue, he created in The WhiteDevil (1612) an exciting, if dramatically flawed, version of a recentItalian scandal involving the Montalto, Orsini and de' Medici families.The introduction to this edition disentangles the various plotlines,illuminates Webster's interest in women as an exploited group withinnate heroic potential and shows how he dissects the misogynistrhetoric of his male characters.