Giovanni reveals to his tutor,
Friar Bonaventura, that he has
sexual feelings for his sister,
Annabella
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
The Friar counsels him to
wrestle with his
affections through prayer
and fasting
Quote
"Must I not do
what all men else
may - love?"
"Must I not praise that beauty..."
"Shall then, for that I am her brother born...?"
"Wits that
presumed/There was
no God....Discovered
first the nearest way
to hell"
AO4
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
Grimaldi and Vasques fight. Grimaldi
promises to take revenge on Soranzo
Grimaldi has been slandering
Soranzo, Vasques' master,
jealous that he is one of
Annabellas suitors
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.
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
Annabella and Putana discuss whom
Annabella might marry.
Annabella ad Putanna have been
watching the disturbance from a
balcony.
Discuss the merits of Annabellas suitors
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
Giovanni confesses his
feelings for Annabella who
reveals that she returns his
love.
Offers her a dagger saying that if she
odes not love him then she must kill
him.
Annabella tells him that she reciprocates his passion and
they both kneel and swear an oath to be true to one another
They kiss and leave the stage for Annabella's bed chamber
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
Brother and sister swear an oath of love
to one another or die. They go offstage
to consummate the union
AO3
Ford and Shakespeare
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
The appearance of Annabella and Putanna on the
balcony, from where Annabella looks down upon her
lover, also recalls Romeo and Juliet
Not an enemy but her brother
Hence even more forbidden as an object of her love
AO4
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
Common for middle-class boys to be sent away to boarding school
for a number of years in the seventeenth century
Annabella may not have lived with him since she was seven
Quotes
"love me or kill me"
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