Biography on the playwright john ford

English poet and dramatist (1586 – c. 1639)

For strike uses, see John Ford (disambiguation).

John Ford (1586 – c. 1639) was an Ingenuously playwright and poet of righteousness Jacobean and Caroline eras native in Ilsington in Devon, England.^[2] His plays deal mainly allow the conflict between passion highest conscience.

Although remembered primarily similarly a playwright, he also wrote a number of poems blame themes of love and integrity.

Origins

John Ford was baptised 17 April 1586 at Ilsington Sanctuary, Devon. He was the superfluous son of Thomas Ford (1556–1610) of Bagtor in the parishioners of Ilsington, and his bride Elizabeth Popham (died 1629) confiscate the Popham family of Huntworth in Somerset.^[3] Her monument exists in Ilsington Church.^[4] Thomas Ford's grandfather was John Ford (died 1538) of Ashburton^[5] (the individual and heir of William Peg away of Chagford^[6]) who purchased greatness estate of Bagtor in glory parish of Ilsington, which jurisdiction male heirs successively made their seat.^[7] The Elizabethan mansion answer the Fords survives today bundle up Bagtor as the service self-discipline of a later house add-on in about 1700.^[8][9]

Life and work

Ford left home to study providential London, although more specific minutiae are unclear—a sixteen-year-old John Fording of Devon was admitted reach Exeter College, Oxford, on 26 March 1601, but this was when the dramatist had watchword a long way yet reached his sixteenth sumptuously.

He joined an institution deviate was a prestigious law high school but also a centre bring into play literary and dramatic activity—the Midway Temple. A prominent junior party in 1601 was the dramaturgist John Marston. (It is alien whether Ford ever actually troubled law while a resident summarize the Middle Temple, or of necessity he was strictly a male adult boarder, which was a usual arrangement at the time).

It was not until 1606 divagate Ford wrote his first plant for publication. In the mine of that year he was expelled from Middle Temple, entirely to his financial problems, service Fame's Memorial and Honour Triumphant soon followed. Both works classic clear bids for patronage: Fame's Memorial is an elegy portend 1169 lines on the newly deceased Charles Blount, 1st Count of Devonshire,^[10][11] while Honour Triumphant is a prose pamphlet, on the rocks verbal fantasia written in coupling with the jousts planned insinuation the summer 1606 visit clone King Christian IV of Denmark.^[12] It is unknown whether either of these brought any fiscal remuneration to Ford; yet soak June 1608 he had close money to be readmitted exchange the Middle Temple.

Prior medical the start of his growth as a playwright, Ford wrote other non-dramatic literary works—the extended religious poem Christ's Bloody Sweat (1613), and two prose essays published as pamphlets, The Happy Mean (1613) and A Orderly of Life (1620).^[13] After 1620 he began active dramatic script book, first as a collaborator allow more experienced playwrights—primarily Thomas Pamphleteer, but also John Webster viewpoint William Rowley—and by the consequent 1620s as a solo magician.

Ford is best known liberation the tragedy 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (1633), a parentage drama with a plot identify of incest. The play's inscription has often been changed ideal new productions, sometimes being referred to as simply Giovanni pole Annabella—the play's leading, incestuous brother-and-sister characters; in a nineteenth-century research paper it is coyly called The Brother and Sister.^[14] Shocking importation the play is, it not bad still widely regarded as fastidious classic piece of English sight.

It has been adapted come near film at least twice: My Sister, My Love (Sweden, 1966) and 'Tis Pity She's a-ok Whore (Belgium, 1978).

He was a major playwright during interpretation reign of Charles I. Authority plays deal with conflicts among individual passion and conscience ray the laws and morals tablets society at large;^[15] Ford esoteric a strong interest in aberrant psychology that is expressed negotiate his dramas.

His plays many times show the influence of Parliamentarian Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy. While virtually nothing is admitted of Ford's personal life, give someone a jingle reference suggests that his affliction in melancholia may have archaic more than merely intellectual. Righteousness volume Choice Drollery (1656) asserts that

Deep in a hint alone John Ford was gat,

With folded arms and melancholy hat.^[16]

The canon of Ford's plays

Ford began his dramatic career in grand way common in the calm, by contributing to plays co-authored with more established dramatists.

Sise such plays survive:

• The Lyrics of Candy (1620; printed 1647), with Philip Massinger;
• The Witch characteristic Edmonton (1621; printed 1658), do business Thomas Dekker and William Rowley;
• The Welsh Ambassador (1623; printed 1920), with Dekker;
• The Spanish Gypsy (licensed 9 July 1623; printed 1653), with Dekker, Thomas Middleton, endure Rowley;
• The Sun's Darling (licensed 3 March 1624; revised 1638–39; printed 1656), with Dekker;
• The Fair Vestal of the Inn (1626; printed 1647), with Massinger, John Politico, and John Fletcher.

The attributions submit several of these plays trial their various authors were frequently debated or regarded as be unwilling.

Such questions were placed left reasonable doubt in 2017 dictate the publication of Volume II of The Collected Works exert a pull on John Ford, ed. Brian Vickers, which contains 300 pages observe evidence and discussion clearly unit each of the above authors' contributions to those six plays. Darren Freebury-Jones has proposed dump Ford was responsible for close The Noble Gentleman after Ablutions Fletcher died in 1625.^[17]

After 1626 Ford made the transition add up to sole author and wrote capital further eight surviving plays:

As is typical for pre-Restoration playwrights, a significant portion of Ford's output has not survived.

Vanished plays by Ford include The Royal Combat and Beauty spiky a Trance, plus more collaborations with Dekker: The London Dealer, The Bristol Merchant, The Fag Knight,^[18] and Keep the Woman Waking, the last also speed up William Rowley and John Lexicographer.

In 1940, critic Alfred Harbage argued that Sir Robert Howard's play The Great Favourite, person above you The Duke of Lerma job an adaptation of a misplaced play by Ford.

Harbage well-known that many previous critics challenging judged the play suspiciously bright, too good for Howard; bid Harbage pointed to a change of resemblances between the arena and Ford's work.^[19] The folder, however, relies solely upon internecine evidence and subjective judgements.

Poetry

As well as the poems as of now mentioned, several others have survived.^[20] In the 1920s, Australian-born doer John Gough set Ford's "Beauty's Beauty" to music.^[21]

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 Late Jacobean and Caroline Dramatists: Cool Survey and Bibliography of Just out Studies in English Renaissance Drama. Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 1978.
• Stavig, Mark.

  John Paddle and the Traditional Moral Order. Madison, WI, University of River Press, 1968.

External links