The style of The Duchess of Malfi oscillates depending on the speaker. Each character’s class background, mood, and level of sanity has a meaningful impact on how they communicate. However, most characters speak in unrhymed blank verse. They communicate freely but with an intrinsic rhythm that is exacerbated by the intricacy of the language. Sometimes, when characters slip into prose, the stylistic shift is meant to indicate a change of mood or meaning. One example comes in Act 2, Scene 1, when Bosola’s conversation with Castruccio is interrupted by a random old woman. When Bosola turns and begins to berate the woman, he switches to prose. He insults her appearance, and then he says:
There was a lady in France that, having had the smallpox, flayed the skin off her face to make it more level.
Bosola’s switch to prose makes his insults seem off-the-cuff and spontaneous. Because of the difference in the way that he is communicating, the audience can tell that he is enraged and that the rant is flowing from him without the structure that verse would provide. Because Bosola is taunting the old woman and is therefore communicating in an exceptional situation, he has made an adjustment to the way he speaks. Later, after the altercation with the old woman is over, he switches back. In this way, the movement between verse and prose can give the audience some indication of the characters’ impulses and moods. Therefore, the play’s style hinges on the way that characters communicate, which in turn frames the play’s plot.
