Online Encyclopedia

Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.

FORD, JOHN (r586–c.1640)

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V10, Page 643 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
» Make a correction to this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Spread the word: del.icio.us del.icio.us it!

See also:

FORD, See also:JOHN (r586–c.1640) , See also:English dramatist, was baptized on the 17th of See also:April 1586 at Ilsington in See also:north See also:Devon. He came of a See also:good See also:family; his See also:father was in the See also:commission of the See also:peace and his See also:mother was a See also:sister of See also:Sir John See also:Popham, successively See also:attorney-See also:general and See also:lord See also:chief See also:justice. The name of John Ford appears in the university See also:register of See also:Oxford as matriculating at See also:Exeter See also:College in 16os. Like a See also:cousin and namesake (to whom, with other members of the society of See also:Gray's See also:Inn, he dedicated his See also:play of The See also:Lover's See also:Melancholy), the future dramatist entered the profession of the See also:law, being admitted of the See also:Middle See also:Temple in 1602; but he seems never to have been called to the See also:bar. Four years afterwards he made his first See also:appearance as an author with an See also:elegy called Fame's Memorial, or the See also:Earl of See also:Devonshire deceased, and dedicated to the widow of the earl (See also:Charles See also:Blount, Lord See also:Mountjoy, " coronized," to use Ford's expression, by See also:King See also:James in 1603 for his services in See also:Ireland)—a See also:lady who would have been no unfitting heroine for one of his own tragedies of lawless See also:passion, the famous See also:Penelope, formerly Lady See also:Rich. This See also:panegyric, which is accompanied by a See also:series of epitaphs and is composed in a See also:strain of fearless extravagance, was, as the author declares, written " unfee'd "; it shows that Ford sympathized, as See also:Shakespeare himself is supposed to have done, with the "awkward See also:fate" of the countess's See also:brother, the earl of See also:Essex. Who the " See also:flint-hearted See also:Lycia " may be, to whom the poet seems to allude as his own disdainful See also:mistress, is unknown; indeed, the See also:record of Ford's private See also:life is little better than a See also:blank. To See also:judge, however, from the dedications, prologues and epilogues of his various plays, heseemsto have enjoyed the See also:patron-See also:age of the earl, afterwards See also:duke, of See also:Newcastle, " himself a muse " after a See also:fashion, and Lord See also:Craven, the supposed See also:husband of the ex-See also:queen of Bohemia. Ford's See also:tract of Honor Triumphant, or the Peeres See also:Challenge (printed 16o6 and reprinted by the Shakespeare Society with the See also:Line of Life, in 1843), and the simultaneously published verses The Monarches See also:Meeting, or the King of Denmarkes Welcome into See also:England, exhibit him as occasionally meeting the festive demands of See also:court and See also:nobility; and a See also:kind of moral See also:essay by him, entitled A Line of Life (printed 1620), which contains references to See also:Raleigh, ends with a See also:climax of fulsome praise to the address of King James I. Yet at least one of Ford's plays (The Broken See also:Heart, iii. 4) contains an implied protest against the See also:absolute See also:system of See also:government generally accepted by the dramatists of the See also:early See also:Stuart reigns. Of his relations with his brother-authors little is known; it was natural that he should See also:exchange complimentary verses with James See also:Shirley, and that he should join in the See also:chorus of laments over the See also:death of See also:Ben See also:Jonson.

It is more interesting to See also:

notice an See also:epigram in See also:honour of Ford by See also:Richard See also:Crashaw, morbidly passionate in one direction as Ford was in another. The lines run: See also:Thou cheat'st us, Ford ; mak'st one seem two by See also:art : What is Love's See also:Sacrifice but the Broken Heart ? " It has been concluded that in the latter See also:part of his life he gratified the tendency to seclusion for which he was ridiculed in The See also:Time Poets (Choice Drollery, 1656) by withdrawing from business and from See also:literary life in See also:London, to his native See also:place; but nothing is known as to the date of his death. His career as a dramatist very probably began by collaboration with other authors. With See also:Thomas See also:Dekker he wrote The See also:Fairy See also:Knight and The Bristowe See also:Merchant (licensed in 1624, but both unpublished), with John See also:Webster A See also:late Murther of the -Sonne upon the Mother (licensed in 1624). A play entitled An See also:ill Beginning has a good End, brought on the See also:stage as early as 16r3 and attributed to .Ford, was. (if his) his earliest acted play; whether Sir Thomas See also:Overbury's Life and untimely Death (1615) was a X. 2Iplay is extremely doubtful; some lines of indignant regret by Ford on the same subject are still preserved. He is also said to have written, at See also:dates unknown, The London Merchant (which, however, was an earlier name for See also:Beaumont and See also:Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle) and The Royal Combat; a tragedy by him, Beauty in a See also:Trance, was entered in the Stationers' Register in 1653, but never printed. These three (or four) plays were among those destroyed by See also:Warburton's See also:cook. The Queen, or the See also:Excellency of the See also:Sea, a play of inverted passion, containing some See also:fine sensuous lines, printed in 1653 by See also:Alexander Singhe for private performance, has been recently edited by W. See also:Bang (Materialien zur Kunde d. dlteren engl.

Dramas, 13, See also:

Louvain, 1906), and is by him on See also:internal See also:evidence confidently claimed as Ford's. Of the plays by Ford preserved to us the dates span little more than a decade—the earliest, The Lover's Melancholy, having been acted in 1628 and printed in 1629, the latest, The Lady's Trial, acted in 1638 and printed in 1639. When See also:writing The Lover's Melancholy, it would seem that Ford had not yet become fully aware of the See also:bent of his own dramatic See also:genius, although he was already See also:master of his See also:powers of poetic expression. He was attracted towards domestic tragedy by an irresistible See also:desire to See also:sound the depths of abnormal conflicts between passion and circumstances, to romantic See also:comedy by a strong though not widely varied imaginative See also:faculty, and by a delusion that he was possessed of abundant comic See also:humour. In his next two See also:works, undoubtedly those most characteristic-ally expressive of his See also:peculiar strength, 'Tis Pity she's a Whore (acted c. 1626) and The Broken Heart (acted c. 1629), both printed in 1633 with the See also:anagram of his name Fide Honor, he had found horrible situations which required dramatic explanation by intensely powerful motives. Ford by no means stood alone among English dramatists in his love of abnormal subjects; but few were so capable of treating them sympathetically, and yet without that reckless grossness or extravagance of expression which renders the morally repulsive aesthetically intolerable, or converts the horrible into the See also:grotesque. For in Ford's genius there was real refinement, except when the " supra-sensually sensual" impulse or the humbler self-delusion referred to came into play. In a third tragedy, Love's Sacrifice (acted c. 163o; printed in 1633), he again worked on similar materials; but this time he unfortunately essayed to See also:base the See also:interest of his See also:plot upon an unendurably unnatural possibility-doing See also:homage to virtue after a fashion which is in itself an insult. In See also:Perkin See also:Warbeck (printed 1634; probably acted a See also:year later) he See also:chose an See also:historical subject of See also:great dramatic promise and psychological interest, and sought to emulate the See also:glory of the great series of Shakespeare's See also:national histories.

The effort is one of the most laudable, as it was by no means one of the least successful, in the dramatic literature of this See also:

period. The Fancies Chaste and See also:Noble (acted before 1636, printed 1638), though it includes scenes of real force and feeling, is dramatically a failure, of which the See also:main See also:idea is almost provokingly slight and feeble; and The Lady's Trial (acted 1638, printed 1630 is only redeemed from utter wearisomeness by an unusually even pleasingness of See also:form. There remain two other dramatic works, of very different kinds, in which Ford co-operated with other writers, the See also:mask of The See also:Sun's See also:Darling (acted 1624,- printed 1657), hardly to be placed in the first See also:rank of early compositions, and The See also:Witch of See also:Edmonton (printed 1658, but probably acted about 1621), in which we see Ford as a See also:joint writer with Dekker and See also:Rowley of one of the most powerful domestic dramas of the English or any other stage. A few notes may be added on some of the more remarkable of the plays enumerated. A wholly baseless See also:anecdote, condensed into a stinging epigram by See also:Endymion See also:Porter, asserted that The Lover's Melancholy was stolen by Ford from Shakespeare's papers. Undoubtedly, the madness of the See also:hero of this play of Ford's occasionally recalls See also:Hamlet, while the heroine is one of the many, and at the same time one of the most pleasing, See also:parallels to See also:Viola. But neither of them is a copy, as See also:Friar See also:Bonaventura in Ford's second play may be said to be a copy of Friar See also:Lawrence, whose kindly pliability he disagreeably exaggerates, or as D'Avolos in Love's Sacrifice is clearly modelled on Iago. - The plot of The Lover's Melancholy, which is ineffective because it leaves no See also:room for suspense in the mind of II the reader, seems See also:original; in the See also:dialogue, on the other See also:hand, a justly famous passage in See also:Act i. (the beautiful version of the See also:story of the See also:nightingale's death) is translated from Strada; while the See also:scheme of the tedious interlude exhibiting the various forms of madness is avowedly taken, together with sundry comments, from See also:Burton's See also:Anatomy of Melancholy. Already, in this play Ford exhibits the singular force of his pathos; the despondent misery of the aged Meleander, and the sweetness of the last See also:scene, in which his daughter comes back to him, alike go to the heart. A situation —hazardous in spite of its comic substratum—between Thaumasta and the pretended Parthenophil is conducted, as See also:Gifford points out, with real delicacy; but the comic scenes are merely stagy, not-withstanding, or by See also:reason of, the effort expended on them by the author. 'Tis Pity she's a Whore has been justly recognized as a tragedy of extraordinary See also:power.

Mr See also:

Swinburne, in his eloquent essay on Ford, has rightly shown what is the meaning of this tragedy, and has at the same time indicated wherein consists its See also:poison. He dwells with great force upon the different treatment applied by Ford to the characters of the two miserable lovers—brother and sister. " The See also:sin once committed, there is no more wavering or flinching possible to him, who has fought so hard against the demoniac See also:possession ; while she who resigned See also:body and soul to the tempter, almost at a word, remains liable to the influences of See also:religion and remorse." This different treatment, shows the feeling of the poet—the feeling for which he seeks to evoke our inmost sympathy—to oscillate between the belief that an awful See also:crime brings with it its awful See also:punishment (and it is sickening to observe how the See also:argument by which the Friar persuades Annabella to forsake her evil courses mainly appeals to the See also:physical terrors of retribution), and the notion that there is something fatal, something irresistible, and therefore in a sense self-justified, in so dominant a passion. The See also:key-See also:note to the conduct of Giovanni lies in his words at the See also:close of the first scene " All this I'll do, to See also:free me from the See also:rod Of vengeance; else I'll swear my fate's my See also:god." Thus there is no See also:solution of the conflict between passion on the one See also:side, and law, See also:duty and religion on the other; and passion triumphs, in the dying words of " the student struck See also:blind and mad by passion — " 0, I bleed fast! Death, thou'rt a See also:guest See also:long look'd for; I embrace Thee and thy wounds: 0, my last See also:minute comes! Where'er I go, let me enjoy this See also:grace Freely to view my Annabella's See also:face." It has been observed by J. A. See also:Symonds that " English poets have given us the right key to the See also:Italian temperament. . . . The love of Giovanni and Annabella is rightly depicted as more imaginative than sensual." It is difficult to allow the appositeness of this See also:special See also:illustration; on the other hand, Ford has even in this See also:case shown his art of depicting sensual passion without grossness of expression; for the exception in Annabella's See also:language to Soranzo seems to have a special intention, and is true to the pressure of the situation and the revulsion produced by it in a naturally weak and yielding mind. The entire See also:atmosphere, so to speak, of the play is stifling, and is not rendered less so by the underplot with Hippolita. 'Tis Pity she's a Whore was translated into See also:French by See also:Maurice See also:Maeterlinck under the See also:title of Annabella, and represented at the See also:Theatre de 1' Euvre in 1894.

The translator prefixes to the version an eloquent appreciation of Ford's genius, especially in his portraits of See also:

women, whose fate it is to live "dans See also:les tenebres, les craintes et les lartnes." Like this tragedy, The Broken Heart was probably founded upon some Italian or other novel of the See also:day; but since in the latter instance there is nothing revolting in the main idea of the subject, the play commends itself as the most enjoyable, while, in respect of many excellences, an unsurpassed specimen of Ford's dramatic genius. The complicated plot is constructed with greater skill than is usual with this dramatist, and the pathos of particular situations, and of the entire See also:character of Penthea—a woman doomed to hopeless misery, but capable of seeking to obtain for her brother a happiness which his See also:cruelty has condemned her to forego—has an intensity and a See also:depth which are all Ford's own. Even the lesser characters are more pleasing than usual, and some beautiful lyrics are interspersed in the play. Of the other plays written by Ford alone, only The See also:Chronicle Historie of Perkin Warbeck. A See also:Strange Truth, appears to See also:call for special See also:attention. A repeated perusal of this See also:drama suggests the See also:judgment that it is overpraised when ranked at no great distance from Shakespeare's national dramas. Historical truth need not be taken into See also:consideration in the See also:matter; and if, notwithstanding James See also:Gairdner's essay appended to his Life and Reign of Richard III., there are still credulous persons See also:left to think and assert that Perkin was not an impostor, they will derive little See also:satisfaction from Ford's play, which with really surprising skill avoids the slightest indication as to the poet's own belief on the subject. That this tragedy should have been reprinted in 1714 and acted in 1745 only shows that the public, as is often the case, had an See also:eye to the See also:catastrophe ratherthan to the development of the See also:action. The dramatic capabilities of the subject are, however, great, and it afterwards attracted See also:Schiller, who, however, seems to have abandoned it in favour of the similar theme of the See also:Russian See also:Demetrius. Had Shakespeare treated it, he would hardly have contented himself with investing the hero with the nobility given by Ford to this personage of his play,—for it is hardly possible to speak of a personage as a character when the See also:clue to his conduct is intentionally withheld. Nor could Shakespeare have failed to bring out with greater variety and distinctness the dramatic features in See also:Henry VII., whom Ford depicts with sufficient distinctness to give some degree of individuality to the figure, but still with a tenderness of See also:touch which would have been much to the See also:credit of the dramatist's skill had he been writing in the Tudor age. The play is, however, founded on See also:Bacon's Life, of which the See also:text is used by Ford with admirable discretion, and on Thomas Gainsford's True and Wonderful See also:History of Perkin Warbeck (1618).

The See also:

minor characters of the honest old Huntley, whom the Scottish king obliges to bestow his daughter's hand upon Warbeck, and of her lover the faithful " See also:Dalyell," are most effectively See also:drawn; even "the men of judgment," the adventurers who surround the chief adventurer, are spirited sketches, and the Irishman among them ha$ actually some humour; while the See also:style of the play is, as befits a ` Chronicle History," so clear and straightforward as to make it easy as well as interesting to read. The Witch of Edmonton was attributed by its publisher to See also:William Rowley, Dekker, Ford, " &c.," but the body of the play has been generally held to be ascribable to Ford and Dekker only. The subject of the play was no doubt suggested by the case of the reported witch, 'See also:Elizabeth See also:Sawyer, who was executed in 1621. Swinburne agrees with Gifford in thinking Ford the author of the whole of the first act; and he is most assuredly right in considering that " there is no more admirable exposition of a play on the English stage." Supposing Dekker to be chiefly responsible for the scenes dealing with the unfortunate old woman whom persecution as a witch actually drives to become one, and Ford for the domestic tragedy of the bigamist murderer, it cannot be denied that both divisions of the subject are effectively treated, while the more important part of the task See also:fell to the See also:share of Ford. Yet it may be doubted whether any such See also:division can be safely assumed; and it may suffice to repeat that no domestic tragedy has ever taught with more effective simplicity and thrilling truthfulness the homely See also:double See also:lesson of the folly of selfishness and the mad rashness of crime. With Dekker Ford also wrote the mask of The Sun's Darling; or, as seems most probable, they founded this 'See also:production upon Phaeton, an earlier mask, of which Dekker had been See also:sole author. Gifford holds that Dekker's hand is perpetually traceable in the first three acts of The Sun's Darling, and through the whole of its comic part, but that the last two acts are mainly Ford's. If so, he is the author of the rather forced occasional See also:tribute on the See also:accession of King Charles I., of which the last act largely consists. This mask, which furnished abundant opportunities for the decorators, musicians and dancers, in showing forth how the seasons and their delights are successively exhausted by a " wanton darling," See also:Ray-See also:bright the grandchild of the Sun, is said to have been very popular. It is at the same time See also:commonplace enough in conception; but there is much that is charming in the descriptions, Jonson and See also:Lyly being respectively laid under contribution in the course of the dialogue, and in one of the incidental lyrics. Ford owes his position among English dramatists to the intensity of his passion, in particular scenes and passages where the character, the author and the reader are alike lost in the situation and in the sentiment evoked by it; and this See also:gift is a supreme dramatic gift. But his plays—with the exception of The Witch of Edmonton, in which he doubtless had a prominent share—too often disturb the mind like a See also:bad See also:dream which ends as an unsolved dissonance; and this defect is a supreme dramatic defect.

It is not the rigid or the stolid who have the most reason to complain of the insufficiency of tragic See also:

poetry such as Ford's; nor is it that morality only which, as Ithocles says in The Broken Heart, " is formed of books and school-traditions," which has a right to protest against the final effect of the most powerful creations of his genius. There is a morality which both " Keeps the soul in tune, At whose sweet See also:music all our actions See also:dance," and is able to physic " The sickness of a mind Broken with griefs."' Of that morality—or of that deference to the binding power within See also:man and the ruling power above him—tragedy is the truest expounder, even when it illustrates by contrasts; but the tragic poet who merely places the problem before us, and bids us stand aghast with him at its cruelty, is not to be reckoned among the great masters of a divine art.

End of Article: FORD, JOHN (r586–c.1640)

Additional information and Comments

There are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click, and select "copy." Then paste it into your website, email, or other HTML.
Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2006 - Net Industries, worldwide.
Do not copy, download, transfer, or otherwise replicate the site content in whole or in part.

Links to articles and home page are always encouraged.

[back]
FORD, EDWARD ONSLOW 		[next]
FORD, RICHARD (1796-1858)

Site © 2006 - Net Industries