John Webster - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

John Webster

Overview

John Webster was an English Jacobean dramatist best known for his tragedies The White Devil
The White Devil
The White Devil is a revenge tragedy from 1612 by English playwright John Webster . A notorious failure when it premiered, Webster complained the play was acted in the dead of winter before an unreceptive audience. The play's complexity, sophistication and satire made it a poor fit with the...

and The Duchess of Malfi
The Duchess of Malfi
The Duchess of Malfi is a macabre, tragic play written by the English dramatist John Webster in 1612–13. It was first performed privately at the Blackfriars Theatre, then before a more general audience at The Globe, in 1613-14...

, which are often regarded as masterpieces of the early 17th-century English stage. He was a contemporary of William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

.
Webster's life is obscure, and the dates of his birth and death are not known. His father, a coach maker also named John Webster, married a blacksmith's daughter named Elizabeth Coates on 4 November 1577, and it is likely that Webster was born not long after in or near London.

Quotations

I saw him going the way of all flesh.

Westward Hoe, Act II, scene ii.

Vain the ambition of kingsWho seek by trophies and dead thingsTo leave a living name behind,And weave but nets to catch the wind.

The Devil's Law Case (1623)

'T is just like a summer bird-cage in a garden,—the birds that are without despair to get in, and the birds that are within despair and are in a consumption for fear they shall never get out. 2

Act I, scene ii. Compare: "To public feasts, where meet a public rout,— Where they that are without would fain go in, And they that are within would fain go out", John Davies, Contention betwixt a Wife, etc.

Condemn you me for that the duke did love me?So may you blame some fair and crystal riverFor that some melancholic, distracted manHath drown'd himself in 't.

Act III, scene ii.

Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright,But look'd too near have neither heat nor light.

Act IV, scene 4. Compare DistanceDistant things appear better|Distance.

Call for the robin redbreast and the wren,Since o'er shady groves they hover,And with leaves and flowers do coverThe friendless bodies of unburied men.

Act V, scene iv.

But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men,For with his nails he'll dig them up again.

Act V, scene iv.

Prosperity doth bewitch men, seeming clear;But seas do laugh, show white, when rocks are near.

Act V, scene vi.

Glories, like glowworms, afar off shine bright,But looked to near have neither heat nor light.

Act IV, scene ii.

Of what is't fools make such vain keeping?Sin their conception, their birth, weeping:Their life, a general mist of error,Their death, a hideous storm of terror.

Act IV, scene ii.

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