4. A heart in which is writ the truth: Giovanni and Annabella

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this module, we focus on the theme of incest, which forms one of the central interests of the play. In particular, we think about how Ford’s treatment of the subject differs from other plays of the period, before exploring Giovanni’s murder of Annabella, which gives rise to one of the most famous stage directions in the play: ‘Enter GIOVANNI with a heart upon his dagger’.

Course

In this course, Professor John Lennard explores John Ford’s 17th-century tragedy, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore. The course begins by thinking about john Ford himself, about whom we know very little, and his literary output, before moving on to explore the structure and language of the play itself. In the fourth module, we focus on the central theme of the play—that of incest—while in the final module, we think about attitudes towards Ford’s play—and incest more generally—today.

Lecturer

Born in Bristol, and educated at Oxford and St Louis, Dr John Lennard has taught English, American, and Commonwealth Literature in Cambridge, London, and Jamaica over more than twenty years. He has written two widely used textbooks (on poetry and drama) and monographs on Shakespeare, Paul Scott, Nabokov, and Faulkner, as well as two collections of essays on contemporary genre writers in crime, science fiction and fantasy, and romance. Enthusiastic, discursive, widely knowledgeable, and a demon for punctuation (on which he has also published extensively), he has been a popular Summer School Course Leader and lecturer for the Institute of Continuing Education since 1992.