John Ford, The Broken Heart

Lisa Hopkins (Sheffield Hallam University)

Ed. by Janet Todd, University of Cambridge
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.03: English Writing and Culture: Renaissance (Elizabethan and Jacobean periods) , 1485-1625.
Vol. editors: William M. Hamlin (Washington State University), J A Roe (University of York), Virginia Mason Vaughan (Clark University), Ema Vyroubalova (Trinity College Dublin)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1633

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Play

Resources

John Ford's The Broken Heart was published in the same year as his more famous 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, but it has not excited the same speculation about whether it might in fact have been written much earlier, for it looks more like a mature work. It is also a far calmer and quieter piece, with perhaps its main interest lying in the strange tension between the deep sufferings of its characters and the muted, stylised way in which these find expression. When the play opens, Orgilus, whose name means “angry”, is talking to his father, Crotolon, about his wish to go and study in Athens. He explains that he wishes to leave Sparta because the match between him and his sweetheart, Penthea (“sorrow”) has been recently …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

716 words

Citation: Hopkins, Lisa. "The Broken Heart". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 October 2000 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=1372, accessed 24 April 2024.]

Save this article