Tis Pity - Act 1

Act 1 - Scene 1
1. Giovanni reveals to his tutor, Friar Bonaventura, that he has sexual feelings for his sister, Annabella
  1. Giovanni's incestuous desire is blasphemous not only because it defies God's prohibition against incest but also because it makes Giovanni guilty of idolatry by placing his love for Annabella above his love for God
2. The Friar counsels him to wrestle with his affections through prayer and fasting
3. Quote
  1. "Must I not do what all men else may - love?"
  2. "Must I not praise that beauty..."
  3. "Shall then, for that I am her brother born...?"
  4. "Wits that presumed/There was no God....Discovered first the nearest way to hell"
4. AO4
  1. Ford's audience would have remembered what happened to Dr Faustus, another brilliant university student who misused his intellect and condemned himself to hell
Act 1 - Scene 2
1. Grimaldi and Vasques fight. Grimaldi promises to take revenge on Soranzo
  1. Grimaldi has been slandering Soranzo, Vasques' master, jealous that he is one of Annabellas suitors
  2. Grimaldi at first disdains to engage with someone so inferior to him in rank but is forced to defend himself and look likely to be defeated.
    1. Florio interrupts the fight and complains that they are making too much noise outside his house. Tells Soranzo there is no need to be jealous as he has as good as secured Annabellas hand
2. Annabella and Putana discuss whom Annabella might marry.
  1. Annabella ad Putanna have been watching the disturbance from a balcony.
    1. Discuss the merits of Annabellas suitors
      1. Unknown man that inspires praise and admiration in Annabella.
        Putanna names him as her brother, then Annabella recognises him
        She wonders why he appears so melancholy
        Giovanni reveals in soliloquy that his efforts to quench his passion for Annabella have failed and that he has decided to tell her the truth whatever it costs him
        Possibly Giovanni's melancholy makes him unrecognisable.
        The Friar describes how much he has altered. Annabella may also have not seen her brother for a number of years
        Ford seems to suggest that the love she feels for this stranger comes from some instinctual 'recognition' of him that could be explained as either familial or erotic
3. Giovanni confesses his feelings for Annabella who reveals that she returns his love.
  1. Offers her a dagger saying that if she odes not love him then she must kill him.
    1. Annabella tells him that she reciprocates his passion and they both kneel and swear an oath to be true to one another
      1. They kiss and leave the stage for Annabella's bed chamber
      2. Expressions of mutual love mirror the marriage ceremony
        Both kneel and repeat the same vows and seal the union with a kiss
        Though Giovanni rejects the social conventions and religious laws that condemn incest, he also invokes them indirectly through marriage in an attempt to legitimise and consecrate their love
        Giovanni offers to rip up his own heart in order to prove the truth of his love ironically reverses the ending of the play when Annabella's heart will be displayed on stage as a symbol of their love
4. Brother and sister swear an oath of love to one another or die. They go offstage to consummate the union
5. AO3
  1. Ford and Shakespeare
    1. Fighting between Vasques and Grimaldi reminds us of the fighting between the Capulets and Montagues, particularly when it is rebuked by Florio as a disturbance of the peace
    2. The appearance of Annabella and Putanna on the balcony, from where Annabella looks down upon her lover, also recalls Romeo and Juliet
      1. Not an enemy but her brother
        Hence even more forbidden as an object of her love
6. AO4
  1. In Beaumont and Fletcher's play A King and No King (1611) which focuses on supposed brother-sister incest, Arbaces explains that the last time he saw his sister she was nine years old
    1. Common for middle-class boys to be sent away to boarding school for a number of years in the seventeenth century
      1. Annabella may not have lived with him since she was seven
7. Quotes
  1. "love me or kill me"
    1. recalls part of the marriage ceremony in which the promises to stay together "till death do us part", this equation of their love with death anticipates the violent end to which the lovers will come

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Tis Pity - Act 1

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