 | | | | 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (Regents Renaissance Drama) |  | Author: John Ford
Creator: N. W. Bawcutt
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Category: Book
List Price: $8.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (6 reviews)
Sales Rank: 1940811
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 110
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.5 x 0.3
ISBN: 0803252617
Dewey Decimal Number: 808
EAN: 9780803252615
ASIN: 0803252617
Publication Date: April 1, 1966
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
New Mermaids are modernized and fully-annotated editions of classic English plays. Each volume includes:
• The playtext, in modern spelling, edited to the highest bibliographical and textual standards
• Textual notes recording significant changes to the copytext and variant readings
• Glossing notes explaining obscure words and word-play
• Critical, contextual and staging notes
• Photographs of productions where applicable
• A full introduction which provides a critical account of the play, the staging conventions of the time and recent stage history; discusses authorship, date, sources and the text; and gives guidance for further reading.
Edited and updated by leading scholars and printed in a clear, easy-to-use format, New Mermaids offer invaluable guidance for actor, student, and theatre-goer alike.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 Excellent edition of a great play January 22, 2008
Had there been no Shakespeare, John Ford's play "'Tis Pity She's a Whore" would never have been written--but Shakespeare's tremendous example not only provided part of context of this play, but also obscures it. "'Tis Pity" is not as good as Shakespeare's very best works (the great tragedies and romances). Ford struggles to match Shakespeare's second-best works (e.g., the great comedies such as "As You Like It").
But judging Ford in comparison with Shakespeare is unfair. Perhaps a few score of writers really match Shakespeare: Homer, Sappho, Ovid, Virgil, perhaps Dante. I wouldn't give Shakespeare a five-star rating and give, say, Pope, Keats, or Austen a four-star rating. Nor would I give Ford a three-star rating next to Shakespeare's five-star and Keats' and Austen's four-star ratings.
In the bell curve of literature, Shakespeare and Homer (in my opinion) occupy the vanishingly small right side of the curve. Very few writers match Ford's achievement in "'Tis Pity." The play is powerful, cleanly plotted, and brilliantly written. In particular, Ford does a great job in creating sympathy for all of his major characters, and in particular for the incestuous lovers at the heart of the play. The play suffers only by comparison with Shakespeare and perhaps a handful of other great dramatists.
More important, the New Mermaids edition is very useful. The introduction is thoughtful and thorough; the page layout is clear (especially important with drama); and the footnotes are generally useful. The editor, Wiggins, sometimes elucidates matters that are perfectly clear--but I would rather the editor take that approach than leave me in the dark.
In short, serious students of literature will want to read this play, and the New Mermaids edition provides a well-annotated text using modern English spelling.
 I had the book long before I had never to read it July 15, 2006
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
Incest and dirty double hearted deeds that led all to this tragedy!
In cattle and horses siblings are breed that good genes double and bad ones die out.
In humans it engenders a madness of the superego
that leads to downfall and disgrace for all.
" Get thee to a nunnery " is the other side of "Tis Pity She's A Whore".
There is no wrong save "they" said it were so.
For men are but animals and their empty morals
all useless inventions?
We would better in these latter days trust
to DNA science than outmoded conventions.
'Tis Pity So Few People Know About This Play! April 7, 2004
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is a highly emotional and well-written work that explores a very taboo subject matter. The play revolves a case of forbidden love, in this case, Giovanni's incestuous love for his sister Annabella. It's pretty easy to figure out after the first few pages that the play will have a tragic ending, but there are several major surprises that happen along the way, and the final scene is unbelievably violent. I'd love the chance to stage a production of "Tis Pity" one of these days...from a directorial standpoint, the script is filled with many interesting possibilities.
 "Tis a pity alright.." April 29, 2001
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
This play is an excellent example of incest in the Renaissance. It's also fairly short and very readable. Bergetto is an interesting character and provides much needed comic relief in this play which is ultimately quite tragic. The title is misleading in many ways, but female sexuality is problematic throughout.
Good but not great October 26, 2000
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
I chose to read this play because firstly, Anthony Burgess mentioned it in his book "English Literature" (1857) and secondly, because it was a short play. Or maybe even thirdly - the central theme [incest] it deals with is treated in an entirely different manner from other literary works. The nature of the incest is frank and horrifying. The intensity of the unlawful relationship is compromised by the coarsening of Giovanni's love for Annabella; their ethereal relationship gradually loses its innocence in the course of the play, culminating in Annabella's pregnancy and finally her death in Giovanni's hands.While we certainly cannot put Ford in the ranks of Shakespeare, he deserves credit for a play whose themes of sexual jealousy, revenge, violence and incent intertwine in a most heartrending way.
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