John Ford (dramatist)

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

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 was not until 1606 that Ford wrote his first works for publication. In spring he was expelled from Middle Temple, due to his financial problems, and Fame's Memorial and Honour Triumphant soon followed. Both works have been said to look like thinly disguised bids for patronage. By June 1608 he had enough money to readmit to the Middle Temple.

Ford is perhaps best known for the tragic play 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (1633) a family drama with a plot line of incest. The play's title has often been changed when advertising new productions, sometimes being referred to as simply "Giovanni and Annabella"—the play's leading, incestuous brother-and-sister characters.^{[citation needed]} Shocking as the play is, it is still widely regarded as a classic piece of English drama.

He was the most significant playwright during the reign of Charles I. Like most of his contemporaries he sometimes collaborated with other playwrights, including Thomas Dekker, John Webster, and William Rowley. His solo plays invariably deal with conflicts between individual passion and conscience and the laws and morals of society at large.

[edit] 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 1638-9; printed 1656), with Dekker
• The Lover's Melancholy (licensed Nov. 24, 1638; printed 1629)
• The Broken Heart (ca. 1625-33; printed 1633)
• Love's Sacrifice (1632?; printed 1633)
• 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (1629-33?; printed 1633)
• Perkin Warbeck (ca. 1629-34; printed 1634), with Dekker?
• The Fancies Chaste and Noble (1635-6; 1638)
• The Lady's Trial (licensed May 3, 1638; printed 1639)

—and probably—

• The Queen (ca. 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, 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 John Fletcher, may contain much of Ford's work. Scholars have nominated other possibilites as well.

[edit] References

• Terence P. Logan 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, 1975.