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'Tis Pity Critics
- The earliest comments of the play come from famous diarist Samuel Pepys who called it a "simple [i
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Foolish] play, and I'll acted
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This reflects the discomfort people had
with the issue of incest in the 17th Century and how they looked down on the mentioning of such an issue
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The tragedy itself was admired when first performed as we know from Thomas Ellice, one of Ford's literary
circle, who dedicated a poem to the play in which he greatly praised and admired the beauty of the
character of Annabella - we know he admired the character and not the actor because Annabella was
played by a boy until 1661
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"Decadence" is a word strongly linked with "'Tis Pity She's a Whore", it means decay, decline and a fallingoff from a state of excellence and vitality
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Kenneth Taylor questioned Ford for revolving his play around incest and for treating the issue
sympathetically
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They believed that there lay moral decay inside Ford
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J
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Other critics have condemned the play and brandished it decadent and have said that it reflected the state
of England in the 17th Century with the destruction of the civil war and subsequent rulings of the
Cromwell's
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In 1968, Mark Stavig also defended Ford by insisting that Ford's audience would never have assumed he
was condoning incest
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Although originally Ford was criticised for his borrowings from Shakespeare, more recent critics have
justified this doing
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Simon Barker has said that "Tis Pity She's a Whore" is a deconstruction of "Romeo and Juliet"
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According to Barker, Ford presents
sexuality itself as a destructive passion and his play is far more dark
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Julie Sanders praised Ford's play because of his "incredibly
self-willed
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For
Sanders, Ford shows "a very real recognition of the plight of women in his contemporary Caroline society,
controlled as they were by head males of the family in private and by patriarchy at large in the public
sphere
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Alison Findlay (Feminist critic) praises the character of Annabella for working as best as she can within her
confinements
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" Findlay demonstrates how Annabella tries to take the initiative and
manipulate the roles available to her
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Turning her into this virginal, Biblical, female ideal empowers Annabella
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Although little has been written about Hippolita and Putana, they are also of interest to Feminist critics
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Moreover,
Putana's punishment at the end of the play, coupled with the deaths of Annabella and Hippolita suggest
that there is no place for women in society who aim to live like men and who do not behave as ladies
should
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In other words, these critics look for the political messages behind a
text and relate these to modern day conflicts
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Martin Butler says that during the Caroline era, "The playwrights were dramatising the conflicts and
tensions at work in their society
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grievances, anxieties and frustrations
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Terri Clerico argues that "'Tis Pity" reflects the fact that Ford's society was changing from one based on
inherited status to one dominated by wealth
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Therefore, Clerico justifies the union between Annabella and her brother as "a defensive act
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Obviously the immediate audience of the play would be the upper class and would have feared social
mobility

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