The White Devil | T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and John Webster’s White Devil
In the following essay, Cahir analyzes the influence of The White Devil on T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land.
Near the end of ‘‘The Burial of the Dead’’ section of The Waste Land, Eliot adapts two lines from John Webster’s 1612 play, White Devil, a tumultuous melodrama set in the moral/spiritual wasteland of sixteenth century Italy. The play centers on the treacherous affair of the Duke of Brachiano and Vittoria Corombona. Into this Italian wasteland, a symbolic knight appears in the form of Vittoria’s brother, Marcello, who is murdered by his own brother, the ignominious Flamineo. As a consequence of Marcello’s death, the redemptive force is aborted, several Italian...
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