John Ford (dramatist)

John Ford (dramatist)

John Ford (baptised April 17, 1586 – c. 1640?) was an English Jacobean and Caroline playwright and poet born in Ilsington in Devon in 1586.

Life and Work

Ford left home to study in London, although more specific details are unclear — a sixteen-year-old John Ford of Devon was admitted to Exeter College, Oxford on March 26, 1601, but this was when the dramatist had not yet reached his sixteenth birthday. He joined an institution that was a prestigious law school but also a centre of literary and dramatic activity — the Middle Temple. A prominent junior member in 1601 was the playwright John Marston. (It is unknown whether Ford ever actually studied law while a resident of the Middle Temple, or whether he was strictly a gentleman boarder, which was a common arrangement at the time.)

It was not until 1606 that Ford wrote his first works for publication. In the spring of that year he was expelled from Middle Temple, due to his financial problems, and "Fame's Memorial" and "Honour Triumphant" soon followed. Both works are clear bids for patronage: "Fame's Memorial" is an elegy of 1169 lines on the recently-deceased Charles Blount, 1st Earl of Devonshire, while "Honour Triumphant" is a prose pamphlet, a verbal fantasia written in connection with the jousts planned for the summer 1606 visit of King Christian IV of Denmark. [Stavig, pp. 3-19.] It is unknown whether either of these brought any financial remuneration to Ford; yet by June 1608 he had enough money to be readmitted to the Middle Temple.

Prior to the start of his career as a playwright, Ford wrote other non-dramatic literary works—the long religious poem "Christ's Bloody Sweat" (1613), and two prose essays published as pamphlets, "The Golden Mean" (1613) and "A Line of Life" (1620). [Stavig, pp. 20-35.] After 1620 he began active dramatic writing, first as a collaborator with more experienced playwrights — primarily Thomas Dekker, but also John Webster and William Rowley — and by the later 1620s as a solo artist.

Ford is best known for the tragedy "'Tis Pity She's a Whore" (1633), a family drama with a plot line of incest. The play's title has often been changed in new productions, sometimes being referred to as simply "Giovanni and Annabella" — the play's leading, incestuous brother-and-sister characters; in a nineteenth-century work it is coyly called "The Brother and Sister." [William Francis Collier, "A History of English Literature in a Series of Biographical Sketches," London, T. Nelson, 1871; p. 170.] Shocking as the play is, it is still widely regarded as a classic piece of English drama.

He was a major playwright during the reign of Charles I. His plays deal with conflicts between individual passion and conscience and the laws and morals of society at large; Ford had a strong interest in abnormal psychology that is expressed through his dramas. His plays often show the influence of Robert Burton's "The Anatomy of Melancholy". While virtually nothing is known of Ford's personal life, one reference suggests that Ford's interest in melancholia may have been more than merely intellectual. The volume "Choice Drollery" (1656) asserts that

::Deep in a dump alone John Ford was gat,::With folded arms and melancholy hat. [Halliday, p. 172.]

The Canon of Ford's Plays

*"The Witch of Edmonton" (1621; printed 1658), with Thomas Dekker and William Rowley
*"The Sun's Darling" (licensed March 3, 1624; revised 1638–39; printed 1656), with Dekker
*"The Lover's Melancholy" (licensed Nov. 24, 1628; printed 1629)
*"The Broken Heart" (c. 1625–33; printed 1633)
*"Love's Sacrifice" (1632?; printed 1633)
*"'Tis Pity She's a Whore" (1629–33?; printed 1633)
*"Perkin Warbeck" (c. 1629–34; printed 1634), with Dekker?
*"The Fancies Chaste and Noble" (1635-6; printed 1638)
*"The Lady's Trial" (licensed May 3, 1638; printed 1639)

— and probably —

*"The Queen" (c. 1621–33?; printed 1653)
*"The Spanish Gypsy" (licensed July 9, 1623; printed 1653).

As is typical for pre-Restoration playwrights, a significant portion of Ford's output has not survived. Lost plays by Ford include "The Royal Combat" and "Beauty in a Trance", plus more collaborations with Dekker: "The London Merchant, The Bristol Merchant, The Fairy Knight," [Critics regard the Ford/Dekker "Fairy Knight" as distinct from the extant manuscript play of the same name.] and "Keep the Widow Waking," the last with William Rowley and John Webster.

And there are possible or questionable attributions: "The Laws of Candy," a play in the canon of Fletcher, may contain much of Ford's work. Scholars have also considered "The Welsh Ambassador" and "The Fair Maid of the Inn" as in part the work of Ford. [Stavig, p. 207.]

In 1940, critic Alfred Harbage argued that Sir Robert Howard's play "The Great Favourite, or The Duke of Lerma" is an adaptation of a lost play by Ford. Harbage noted that many previous critics had judged to play suspiciously good, perhaps too good, for Howard; and Harbage pointed to a range of resemblances between the play and Ford's work. [Harbage, pp. 299-304.] The case, however, relies solely upon internal evidence and to-some-degree subjective judgements.

Notes

References

*Halliday, F. E. "A Shakespeare Companion 1564–1964." Baltimore, Penguin, 1964.
* Harbage, Alfred. "Elizabethan:Restoration Palimpsest." "Modern Language Review" Vol. 35 No. 3 (July 1940), pp. 278-319.
*Logan, Terence P., and Denzell S. Smith, eds. "The Later Jacobean and Caroline Dramatists: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama." Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 1978.
* Stavig, Mark. "John Ford and the Traditional Moral Order." Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin Press, 1968.

External links

*cite news | first= | last= | coauthors= | title=Online works by John Ford | date= | publisher= | url =http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/search?author=jOHN+fORD&amode=words&title=&tmode=words | work =Online Books Page | pages = | accessdate = | language =


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем написать курсовую

Look at other dictionaries:

  • John Ford (disambiguation) — John Ford (1894 ndash;1973) was an Academy Award winning American film director famous for westerns.John Ford or Johnny Ford is also the name of:Public officials*John Ford (diplomat), British Foreigh Office representative; High Commissioner to… …   Wikipedia

  • John Webster — (c. 1580 ndash; c. 1634)cite book last = Forker first = Charles authorlink = coauthors = title = Skull Beneath the Skin publisher = Southern Illinois University Press date = 1995 06 15 location = Carbondale, Illinois, United States isbn = 978… …   Wikipedia

  • John Warburton (officer of arms) — John Warburton (1682 1759) was Somerset Herald of Arms in Ordinary at the College of Arms in the early 18th century. Warburton was a collector of old drama manuscripts, who is perhaps most notable because of his carelessness. On one occasion, he… …   Wikipedia

  • John Fletcher (playwright) — John Fletcher (1579 ndash; 1625) was a Jacobean playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King s Men, he was among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; both during his lifetime and in the early… …   Wikipedia

  • John Fletcher — (1579 1625) fue un dramaturgo inglés del período jacobino. Contenido 1 Biografía …   Wikipedia Español

  • PATERSON, John Ford (1851-1912) — artist was born at Dundee, Scotland, in 1851. He attended the Royal Scottish Academy schools at Edinburgh and began exhibiting at its exhibitions while still in his teens. He went to Melbourne in 1872, stayed three years, and then returned to… …   Dictionary of Australian Biography

  • Ford, John — I (baptized April 17, 1586, Ilsington, Devon, Eng. died 1639?) British dramatist. Early in his career he studied law and wrote collaboratively with several other playwrights, but little more is known of his life, and the dating of many of his… …   Universalium

  • Ford — [fôrd] 1. Ford Madox [mad′əks] (born Ford Madox Hueffer) 1873 1939; Eng. writer & editor 2. Gerald R(udolph), Jr. (born Leslie Lynch King, Jr.) 1913 ; 38th president of the U.S. (1974 77) 3. Henry 1863 1947; U.S. automobile manufacturer 4. John… …   English World dictionary

  • FORD, JOHN —    dramatist, born at Islington, North Devon; studied at Oxford, and entered the Middle Temple in 1602, but was never called to the bar; in 1606 appeared his first poetic work Fame s Memorial, an elegy on the death of the Earl of Devonshire, and… …   The Nuttall Encyclopaedia

  • Ford — I. biographical name Ford Madox 1873 1939 originally Ford Hermann Hueffer English author II. biographical name Gerald R(udolph) 1913 American politician; 38th president of the United States (1974 77) III. biographical name Henry 1863 1947… …   New Collegiate Dictionary

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”