ABSTRACT
John Ford’s preoccupation with melancholy, madness and obsessive sexuality has intrigued and sometimes appalled readers across the centuries. The consistent level of grim irony in his plays and his compelling verse invite speculation over the kind of intelligence that could have created ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore. Historians have noted the establishment in the seventeenth century of a regime of sexual repression which was central to the doctrines of social and familial uniformity associated with Puritanism. Just as the play repeatedly connects female sexuality with disease and dysfunction, rather than with fertility and reproduction, and food and drink bring death rather than sustenance, the religious doctrine of Bonaventura is seen as unable to contain the lovers’ desire. ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore was first staged between 1629 and 1633 at the Phoenix Theatre in Drury Lane, a private theatre.
