ABSTRACT

Critical interpretation of the text of The White Devil often tends to the theory that the titular char1;1.cter is Vittoria. This derives from several sources, not the least of which is the reference to her on the title page of the 1612 quarto as 'the famous Venetian Curtizan'. Her early desire to be rid of Camillo and Isabella, and institute her affair with and marriage to Bracciano may be taken as evidence enough to point to her as the obvious character for the title role. Even analysis which recognizes that devilry within the play is multifaceted still refers to Vittoria as 'The White Devil herself .1 Attribution of title to character depends frequently on figurative aspects of the play, such as the references by other characters to woman as wolf or devil, the association of whore with cold Russian winter, and both Vittoria's and Bracciano's use of crystalline mirror/light imagery at critical points of flux. However, this ignores the dramatic action, within which she is only one amongst many characters prosecuting an ambition to higher status, from Zanche's attempt to seduce Mulinassar to Monticelso's elevation from cardinal to Pope. If so many display such a tendency, any distinction becomes tenuous. As A.J. Smith's discussion of Lodvico's and Flamineo's meeting during 3.3 suggests, 'Webster aims ... to play off the adversaries in the audience's judgement so that one doesn't commit oneself to either but is forced to take a relative view of them' .2 And this relativism applies throughout the play to all characters, including Vittoria. I will propose the alternative case that, rather than attribution to one character, the White Devil is a definable element of almost all the characters. Webster, then, builds an interplay that produces the social circumstance of life within the court at Rome as requiring such Machiavellian behaviour for survival, and presents it as a sequence of emblematic devices.