(no subject)
Mar. 8th, 2008 05:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsThe last Jacobean tragedy booklogging post! You all weep, I am sure.
The two last plays we read for class were both by John Ford: 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (and yes, I was reading the edition with the jaunty neon pink cover) and The Broken Heart. 'Tis Pity She's a Whore is a tragedy in the true wacky Jacobean style, despite being technically post-Jacobean in time period - histrionic Italians, wacky brother-sister incest, raging jealous husbands, surpries pregnancy, and a conclusion that involves the hero cutting out his sister's heart and waving it around on the point of his sword. As you do.
The play is disturbing basically because the hero is crazy and no one else is quite crazy or dramatic enough to keep up with him. There are a couple of revenge plots going on, but one of the vengeful husbands decides that revenge is too much trouble and gives up halfway through, and the other one never gets a chance to murder his wife, the incestuous sister, because her brother gets there first with the heart-slicing etc. (much to the surprise of his sister-lover, who, as the more sensible of the pair, clearly did not expect to become an object lesson in Why You Don't Take The Dramatic Things You Say About Giving Your Heart To People Literally.) It also wasn't quite as much fun for me as, say, Webster, because you didn't quite feel that everyone else deserved to have all this happening at their dinner party - especially the father of the hero and heroine, who has been very kind and understanding and oblivious all throughout the play, and is understandably so freaked out when his son pops up and announces that he's been sleeping with his sister this whole time that he promptly dies of shock. Poor guy.
The Broken Heart, by comparison, is a very dignified and sedate sort of tragedy. It takes place in Sparta, so everyone suffers very bravely and resolves to have death before dishonor etc., and nobody would ever dream of flying into a rage and poisoning anyone's tennis racket or cutting out their heart. Basically, the main conflict involves a pair of betrothed lovers who are separated because the girl's brother breaks their father's promise that she could marry Mr. True Love, and instead lets a much richer man force himself on her and marry her. The brother feels very guilty about this afterwards and continually apologizes repeatedly to everyone, but it is to NO AVAIL, because the girl decides that this means she is Forever Dishonored, announces to everyone that she is going to die, and starves herself to death in a tragic and dignified manner. Her boyfriend also decides that it is his duty to Take Revenge on the brother, and so he traps him in a chair and kills him, all the while talking regretfully about how very brave and noble the brother is and how sorry he is about all this, really, but, you know, duty calls. This is the only murder in the whole piece, which is, like, unheard of for a revenge tragedy. And then he goes to the Princess, who was betrothed to the brother, and with great dignity announces that he murdered this very great man, he's very sorry about it but it had to be done, and now he himself deserves the death penalty, and the Princess is like, "very well, choose your death. WITH HONOR AND DIGNITY." So he very politely asks his friend to help him slit his wrists, and dies. And then the Princess, who has been tough and controlled and sedate throughout the whole thing, very properly gives a series of orders dictating who everyone left alive should marry, hands the kingdom over to someone else, and then keels over and dies of the eponymous broken heart. And everyone stands around and tuts over how brave and sorrowful they all were, O Sparta, O woe. Everyone acts in general much more sensibly than in your average revenge tragedy, but . . . I have to admit, I kind of miss the crazy.
The two last plays we read for class were both by John Ford: 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (and yes, I was reading the edition with the jaunty neon pink cover) and The Broken Heart. 'Tis Pity She's a Whore is a tragedy in the true wacky Jacobean style, despite being technically post-Jacobean in time period - histrionic Italians, wacky brother-sister incest, raging jealous husbands, surpries pregnancy, and a conclusion that involves the hero cutting out his sister's heart and waving it around on the point of his sword. As you do.
The play is disturbing basically because the hero is crazy and no one else is quite crazy or dramatic enough to keep up with him. There are a couple of revenge plots going on, but one of the vengeful husbands decides that revenge is too much trouble and gives up halfway through, and the other one never gets a chance to murder his wife, the incestuous sister, because her brother gets there first with the heart-slicing etc. (much to the surprise of his sister-lover, who, as the more sensible of the pair, clearly did not expect to become an object lesson in Why You Don't Take The Dramatic Things You Say About Giving Your Heart To People Literally.) It also wasn't quite as much fun for me as, say, Webster, because you didn't quite feel that everyone else deserved to have all this happening at their dinner party - especially the father of the hero and heroine, who has been very kind and understanding and oblivious all throughout the play, and is understandably so freaked out when his son pops up and announces that he's been sleeping with his sister this whole time that he promptly dies of shock. Poor guy.
The Broken Heart, by comparison, is a very dignified and sedate sort of tragedy. It takes place in Sparta, so everyone suffers very bravely and resolves to have death before dishonor etc., and nobody would ever dream of flying into a rage and poisoning anyone's tennis racket or cutting out their heart. Basically, the main conflict involves a pair of betrothed lovers who are separated because the girl's brother breaks their father's promise that she could marry Mr. True Love, and instead lets a much richer man force himself on her and marry her. The brother feels very guilty about this afterwards and continually apologizes repeatedly to everyone, but it is to NO AVAIL, because the girl decides that this means she is Forever Dishonored, announces to everyone that she is going to die, and starves herself to death in a tragic and dignified manner. Her boyfriend also decides that it is his duty to Take Revenge on the brother, and so he traps him in a chair and kills him, all the while talking regretfully about how very brave and noble the brother is and how sorry he is about all this, really, but, you know, duty calls. This is the only murder in the whole piece, which is, like, unheard of for a revenge tragedy. And then he goes to the Princess, who was betrothed to the brother, and with great dignity announces that he murdered this very great man, he's very sorry about it but it had to be done, and now he himself deserves the death penalty, and the Princess is like, "very well, choose your death. WITH HONOR AND DIGNITY." So he very politely asks his friend to help him slit his wrists, and dies. And then the Princess, who has been tough and controlled and sedate throughout the whole thing, very properly gives a series of orders dictating who everyone left alive should marry, hands the kingdom over to someone else, and then keels over and dies of the eponymous broken heart. And everyone stands around and tuts over how brave and sorrowful they all were, O Sparta, O woe. Everyone acts in general much more sensibly than in your average revenge tragedy, but . . . I have to admit, I kind of miss the crazy.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-03-09 10:35 am (UTC)*an eyeing*
*and very possibly might read the first now!*
no subject
Date: 2008-03-09 06:45 pm (UTC)(There is also a film version where they are like, 'not enough bloodshed. Let us add a gratuitous massacre of nameless characters at the end!' but I do not feel that really adds to the plot. Also they take out all the poetry.)
no subject
Date: 2008-03-09 11:22 am (UTC)This is more common than you might think. In fact I did it just the other day. And previously I did it in the middle of January. Note to self: obtain more sisters.
Also, "The Broken Heart" sounds utterly hilarious even if it's because my brain insists that it must be a poignant analysis of the ways in which our socially mandated duties are so often in conflict with one another. Oh silly brain, all obsessed with socialization.
Yay for the crazy,
Ana
no subject
Date: 2008-03-09 06:51 pm (UTC)You are actually not wrong! It's all about control and duty promises and promises broken. Though 'Tis Pity is actually just as good for that, kind of - a large portion of the play is Giovanni, the hero, who has been to University and is therefore Too Good At Debating, trying to rationalize his way out of the socialization that Sleeping With Your Sister Is Wrong while his confessor figure facepalms at him. "But if we're related to each other, it actually just means that we're closer which means that we should totally be together -" "No! Bad Giovanni! Go sit at the bottom of a well and think about what you've done!"
no subject
Date: 2008-03-09 07:01 pm (UTC)*sigh* Look at what you're doing, all making me want to read stuff.
Put upon... really,
Ana
no subject
Date: 2008-03-09 07:14 pm (UTC)I would never encourage people to read things. >.> And this is not at ALL one of my secret aims in booklogging. Wud never pimp books out; iz Gen's fault!
no subject
Date: 2008-03-09 07:16 pm (UTC)And... hey, I'll buy that. So many things are Gen's fault, after all.
Blaming Gen,
Ana
no subject
Date: 2008-03-10 10:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-10 10:03 pm (UTC)Not lying,
Ana
no subject
Date: 2008-03-10 10:09 pm (UTC)Vile lies, slander, and calumny.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-10 10:13 pm (UTC)Really!
Ana
no subject
Date: 2008-03-10 10:27 pm (UTC)Your FACE is unpossibleYou are so mean to me.
Mean.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-10 10:52 pm (UTC)Leering (or at least making a go at the expression and failing),
Ana