The Fancies, Chaste and Noble

John Ford, Dominic J. Hart

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429576546
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Published in 1985: The main plot portrays the bachelor Octavio, Marquis of Siena, and his establishment of his "Bower of Fancies, " something like a Platonic academy for those he calls the "fancies" — Clarella, Silvia, and Floria, three young women who are, or are said to be, "young, wise, noble, fair, and chaste.

CHAPTER ONE

I

John Ford was born in 1586. The date of his birth and the fact that he was the eldest son of a fairly wealthy landowner are all we know of his youth until 1601, when he apparently entered Oxford.¹ His stay there, if he was there at all, was very brief, as in 1602 he was enrolled as a member of the Middle Temple, drawn there, probably, by an uncle who was a member of high standing. How long he was there, and whether or not he actually completed his studies for a law degree is unknown. We do know that in 1610 he was expelled from the Middle Temple for failure to pay his buttery bill, and that in 1617 he joined in a protest against the requirement to wear caps in the dining room of the Temple. The fact that he was there on these two dates does not imply a continuous residence, but the conjecture is that he was a fairly regular member of the Temple and that he probably did obtain his law degree.

Ford’s father died in the year 1610 and bequeathed to Ford ten pounds a year, but to each of Ford’s two younger brothers he bequeathed twenty pounds a year. What this may reflect upon Ford’s character we can only guess. However, in 1616, Ford received an additional bequest from his uncle of twenty pounds yearly. This combined with the ten pounds received from his father would have given Ford a somewhat meager income, though an amount sufficient to live.

Any attempt to describe what type of person John Ford was must rest on a shaky foundation. The only direct allusion to Ford’s personality is the following small couplet from The Times Poet, a whimsical book of verse on some of the public figures of the day.

Deep in a dump John Ford alone was got.

With folded arms and melancholy hat.

Some critics have attempted to construe this statement to indicate that Ford was a reserved, shy and melancholy individual.² Such a conclusion, weakened by the meager support the couplet would give to any conclusion, is further weakened by the fact that the author of the couplet may not have been referring to Ford himself, but to his work which, as we shall see, makes wide use of Burton’s theory of melancholy. It would be wise, therefore, in discussing Ford’s personality to disregard this couplet and turn to the testimony of one who furnishes us with rather slim but authoritative evidence - Ford himself.

The dedications which precede Ford’s plays are remarkable for their lack of sycophantic tone. At a time when many of his contemporaries were filling their dedications with hyperbolic praise in attempts to secure patronage. Ford’s dedications were unusually honest, direct and independent. Also unlike most of his contemporaries, Ford did not seem to have a patron. Two of his dedications. Love’s Sacrifice and The Lover’s Melancholy, are addressed to his very good friend, cousin and namesake, John Ford. Others, like The Fancies, though addressed to persons of rank, are typically independent, and make clear that Ford was not seeking patronage. The dedication to The Fancies reads in part as follows. “Endeavour of being knowne to your Lordship by such meanes, I conceive no Ambition; the extent being bounded by Humility, so neither can the Argument appeare ungracious, nor the Writer, in that, without allowance.” From this practice it seems likely that Ford was either an extremely honest and sincere individual, or that he had a fairly substantial source of private income. As much as we may wish to corroborate the former, the latter seems to be the most acceptable conclusion. Ford did come from a financially comfortable family, was probably a lawyer, and did have, from his father and his uncle, a yearly income of thirty pounds. This, combined with statements in a few of his dedications to the effect that his plays were merely the product of his leisure hours, does seem to indicate that Ford did have a private and sufficient source of income, and did not rely on his writing to provide his livelihood.³

The date of Ford’s death is a mystery. He disappears from almost all records after writing his The Lady’s Trial in 1638. Theories have ranged all the way from placing his death in the late 1630’s or early 1640’s to sometime after the Restoration. The only actual evidence we have is two epigrams dated 1639 and 1641 which seem to indicate that Ford was still alive at those times.⁴

His literary career itself can conveniently be divided into three periods. The first period, during which he wrote prose and poetry, runs from 1606 to 1615. During this period his work reveals a marked interest in love, especially among those of aristocratic birth, and in the cult, or the conventions, which surrounded the aristocracy. Fames Memorial, for example, is a poem in honor of the Earl of Devonshire, the lover and later the husband of Lady Rich. His prose and poetry of this period, however, are of little literary value today, though they do serve to show us the early inclination of Ford’s mind toward the theories of love and aristocracy which were to have a profound effect on his later dramatic work. The works of this period are:

Fames Memorial (1606) - a poem

Honor Triumphant (1606) - a prose pamphlet

Christes Bloodie Sweat (1613) - a poem

The Golden Meane (1613) - a prose pamphlet

Sir Thomas Overburyes Ghost (1615) - a prose pamphlet (now lost)

A Line of Life (1615) - a prose pamphlet

The second period of Ford’s career runs from 1621 to 1625. During this period he worked on plays, but only in collaboration with older and more well-known dramatists. Ford’s collaborative efforts include:

The Witch of Edmonton (1621) - Ford, Dekker, and Rowley

The Spanish Gypsy (1622-3) - Ford, Middleton, and Rowley

A Late Murther of the Sun Upon the Mother (1624) -Ford, Dekker, Webster, and Rowley (now lost)

The Bristowe Merchant (1624) - Ford and Dekker (now lost)⁵

The Faire Maid of the Inne (1625) - Ford and Fletcher It appears that in most of his collaboration Ford worked chiefly with single scenes or characters. The detailed and sometimes delicate work of creating and developing the plot was more often than not left to a more experienced collaborator.⁶ It is without much doubt that this is one of the major causes of the careless or skimpy plots which some critics hold often mars his own best dramatic work.⁷

The third period of Ford’s career, during which he produced his own dramatic work unaided, runs from 1628 to 1638. We do not have a date for his last play The Queen, but it was probably written soon after The Lady’s Trial. All his plays were produced by either the Queen’s or the King’s Men at either the Phoenix, the Blackfriars, or the Cockpit. As an examination of his plays reveals, and as he himself tells us in his dedications, all of Ford’s plays were directed at the higher class of audience, that is, at the educated, middle, and aristocratic classes, the type of audience which may have formed a regular clientele for the indoor theaters of the period.⁸ When compared to his predecessors. Ford’s work usually contains a minimum of comic buffoonery designed to please the tastes of the lower classes. This is fortunate since when Ford does employ such buffoonery, it is often inept, indicating either a lack of ability or a lack of concern on the part of the artist, or its comic potential takes second place to a primary function of reinforcing, albeit weakly, the main plot. An exception to this tendency, however, is ’Tis Pity. Here all the subplots are integrated with and necessary to the main plot. They are used to present Annabella’s suitors as foils for Giovanni. Also, though Ford’s plays were produced by adult companies at both public and private theaters, there was, during Ford’s career, a considerable narrowing of the gap that had previously existed between public and private theaters. Thus it is not strange that Ford directed his plays...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter One. Introduction to John Ford and The Fancies Notes
• Chapter Two. Textual Introductions Notes
• Chapter Three. The Fancies, Chast and Noble
• Chapter Four. Appendices
• Bibliography