The Grammar of the Heart: Emblems and Theatrical Strategies in John Ford's Tragedies

John Ford's major tragedies operate as stage emblems that articulate a theory of passions, a grammar of the heart, grounded as much on Petrarch's language as on the humoral formulation of human affects. Keeping a directorial eye towards their potential staging in the restricted space of The Blackfriars or The Phoenix, I examine how these complex symbolic images enable the overlapping of the symbolic and narrative levels of the plays. Associated with different trends in Christian spirituality, they help Ford to emphasise repentance and moral regeneration as the main ethical stance of his protagonists.