'tis Pity She's a Whore

One of the most controversal plays in drama literature, this play's treatment of the subject of incest and the portrayal of the morality of the protagonist has made this play one of the most studied in history. It is one of the most psychologically powerful and intellectually challenging tragedies produced in the early years of King Charles I's reign and 20th-century directors have found inspiration from the play in theatrical and film adaptations and productions. In the plot Annabella, accompanied by her down-to-earth nurse, is introduced to a series of suitors to her hand. She finds all of them unsatisfactory - and rightly so, for the audience knows that the nastiest of them is having an affair with her domineering aunt. Eventually she is wooed by a sensitive and passionate young man whose love she returns - but this young man happens to be her own brother, Giovanni. When they consummate their love and she, to avoid the scandal of extramarital pregnancy, agrees to marry her aunt's lover, the tragic outcome is inevitable.

Martin Wiggins is a Fellow of the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham.