Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Part 1 Themes
- Part II Readings
- 11 The Spanish Tragedy and metatheatre
- 12 Doctor Faustus: dramaturgy and disturbance
- 13 Edward II: Marlowe, tragedy and the sublime
- 14 Arden of Faversham: tragic action at a distance
- 15 The Revenger’s Tragedy: Original Sin and the allures of vengeance
- 16 The Tragedy of Mariam: political legitimacy and maternal authority
- 17 The Changeling and the dynamics of ugliness
- 18 The Duchess of Malfi: tragedy and gender
- 19 ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore: the play of intertextuality
- Index
19 - ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore: the play of intertextuality
from Part II - Readings
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 November 2010
- Frontmatter
- Part 1 Themes
- Part II Readings
- 11 The Spanish Tragedy and metatheatre
- 12 Doctor Faustus: dramaturgy and disturbance
- 13 Edward II: Marlowe, tragedy and the sublime
- 14 Arden of Faversham: tragic action at a distance
- 15 The Revenger’s Tragedy: Original Sin and the allures of vengeance
- 16 The Tragedy of Mariam: political legitimacy and maternal authority
- 17 The Changeling and the dynamics of ugliness
- 18 The Duchess of Malfi: tragedy and gender
- 19 ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore: the play of intertextuality
- Index
Summary
At the very end of John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (c. 1633), a Cardinal steps forward to sort through an extraordinary story of incest and murder 'strangely met' (5.6.158) and to impose closure on the resulting spectacle of slaughter. Gesturing, we might imagine, to the disembodied and impaled heart of Annabella, the woman loved and killed by her brother, the Cardinal poses a stunning rhetorical question: 'Of one so young, so rich in nature's story, / Who could not say, 'tis pity she's a whore?' (5.6.159-60). The play's title clearly anticipates and emphasises the final tag. Also in their placement, these lines stand out as the provocative capstone of the complex and perplexing drama which precedes.
And yet, while the Cardinal's remark presumes and so precludes a response, that response is itself highly questionable. Where the Cardinal asks 'who could not say, 'tis pity she's a whore', we might well ask who could or indeed would? Annabella, the 'she' in question, is indictable on many fronts: she has engaged in an incestuous affair with her brother and, to cover her resulting pregnancy, she has married and deceived an unsuspecting nobleman, Soranzo. Upon learning her secret, Soranzo condemns her as a 'whore of whores' (4.3.20), as well as a 'strumpet', a 'rare, notable harlot', and an 'excellent quean', which all add up to the same thing (4.3.1, 4, 25). Otherwise, and even so, the charge of 'whore' seems at once to underplay Annabella's incestuous actions and to overplay her breach of marital fidelity.
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- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to English Renaissance Tragedy , pp. 249 - 260Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010