Well you got me, I read ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore and I wasn’t disappointed.  It lived up to my expectations!

I knew you’d enjoy it.  Violence, sex, absurd comedy, violence, intrigue, violence; there’s little in it for everyone!

Yes, especially violence.  So what themes are you going to analyse?

Well, this and the next few essays in the ‘Tis Pity 360 are going to be primarily focused on methods or schools of literary analysis.  We’ll get into some of the thematic questions, of course, but this is going to be a bit of a peek behind the curtain.  And for today’s entry, we’re going to be looking at text-based analysis. 

Hold on, text-based analysis?  Isn’t all analysis of a written work text-based?

You might think so, but not exactly!  Take author-based literary criticism for example, this is a school of literary criticism that uses knowledge of the author’s life (which is outside of the text) to inform their analysis.  All of literary criticism references the text, of course, but the degree of emphasis on the text itself varies.  So when I say we’re looking at text-based analysis, it means we are using the text and the text alone to inform our analysis, intratextual analysis.

In the specific case of theatre, I have generally found text-based analysis to be most useful when looking at monologues.  To be sure, a lot can be gleaned from text-based analysis of dialogue.  But long, winding monologues where characters explain their goals, motivations or beliefs are simply perfect for text-based analysis.  Now, which character in TPSW would you associate with lengthy speeches?

Oh that’s easy, Bonaventura!

Indeed, his character does have a penchant for long lectures, usually about the general sinfulness of incest .  Notably, Bonaventura tries to dissuade both Giovanni and Annabella from their relationship, using different language in both cases.  This makes for a situation uniquely favourable to text-based analysis, as the similarity in content of his speeches will allow us to gain some unique insights into the text. 

Now, any good text-based analysis starts with a close reading of the text.  While we often talk about “reading closely” in common speech, close reading refers to a specific technique of analysis.  It is a form of reading where sustained analysis is done of word choice, order, syntax, etc.  That is, close reading places emphasis both on the “what” and the “how” of a text.  Close readings are famous (or perhaps, infamous) for becoming longer than the text they analyse, as each word is meticulously analysed. 

Could you provide us with an example?

That’s what I’m here for, let’s take a look at Bonaventura’s parting speech at the end of I.i.

“Hie to thy father’s house, there lock thee fast alone within thy chamber; then fall down on both thy knees, and grovel on the ground; cry to thy heart; wash every word thou utter’st in tears and if ‘t be possible of blood: beg Heaven to cleanse the leprosy of lust that rots thy soul; acknowledge what thou art, a wretch, a worm, a nothing; weep, sigh, pray three times a day, and three times every night: for seven days space do this; then, if thou find’st no change in thy desires, return to me; I’ll think on remedy. Pray for thyself at home, whilst I pray for thee here. Away! My blessing with thee!  We have need to pray.”

Heavy stuff, as is often the case for this show.

Yeah that’s Bonaventura, never a whimsical character.  Here he’s giving Giovanni advice on how to rid himself of his affections for his sister Annabella, advice that ultimately  fails.

Now, as I’m sure you’ve already noticed, this is written in iambic pentameter, a ubiquitous form for the time using 5 unstressed syllables alternating with 5 stressed syllables.  As such, keeping track of the metre of the lines is going to be key, as breaks in the metre are often significant.  The speech is also heavily enjambed, meaning that thoughts or sentences continue across lines (as opposed to end-stopping), also common in English theatre. 

Is this close reading?  It doesn’t seem that hard.

Oh no, this is just setting the stage, this is close reading:

• Hie to thy father’s house, there lock thee fast
  • Regular metre.
  • “Hie” implies speed and urgency.  Perhaps related to urgency of Bonaventura’s advice.
  • “Father’s house”, the house is owned by the father.
  • The suggestion for Giovanni to lock himself “there”, his “father’s house” implies Giovanni lives at his father’s home or is welcome there.
  • “Lock thee” suggests Giovanni should not be leaving the space he is to stay.
  • “Fast” modifying “Lock” underlines how total his isolation should be.
• Alone within thy chamber; then fall down
  • Irregular metre, interrupted by the semicolon following “chamber”, specifically the fifth syllable “-ber”.  Such disruption may be to emphasize the importance of Giovanni’s practicing this alone at home.
  • “Alone”, Giovanni is to be alone during this period.
  • “Within thy chamber”, Giovanni is to be indoors during this isolation.
  • “Thy” modifying “Chamber” implies Giovanni has a room within his father’s house.  This also suggests he lives there or is welcome there.
  • “Then” implies that the actions Giovanni is to undertake should be done only once he’s locked within his room.
  • “Fall down”, collapse entirely and without restraint.
• On both thy knees, and grovel on the ground;
  • Regular metre.
  • “On both thy knees” implies Giovanni is to be in a kneeling position.  This is a position implying surrender or prayer.
  • “Grovel” in this context implies begging for forgiveness, likely in a religious sense.
  • “On the ground”  modifying “Grovel” emphasizes the submissive or obsequious manner Giovanni is to grovel.
• Cry to thy heart; wash every word thou utter’st
  • Regular metre.
  • “Cry” implies Bonaventura to cry whilst begging for forgiveness, underlining the seriousness with which Giovanni is to take this.
  • “To thy heart”, which means approximately “from the depths of your heart” in more modern English, emphasizes the authenticity this crying (and bid for forgiveness) must show.
  • “Wash every word … in tears” suggests that tears will have some cleansing effect on the words Giovanni speaks while begging for forgiveness.  This fits with the larger suggestion that the bid for forgiveness must demonstrate authenticity.
  • “Utter’st” suggests Giovanni is to speak the words aloud.  This may be related to the previous instruction for Giovanni to carry this out alone in his room.
• In tears and if ‘t be possible of blood:
  • Regular metre
  • “In tears” suggests Giovanni is to cry tears whilst begging for forgiveness
  • “If ‘t be possible” suggests that the advice to “Wash every word” in “Blood” may not be possible.  However, the framing also suggests that it would be ideal for Giovanni to wash his words with blood, probably because such an act would emphasize the authenticity of his bid for forgiveness.
  • The suggestion for Giovanni to wash his tears with “blood” opens up several possibilities for how he could do this.  Is he supposed to cry blood, like he is to cry tears?  Is he to open a vein in order to spill blood?

Okay okay, I get it, close reading is extremely in-depth, you don’t need to do the rest of the speech.

It’s quite the arduous process, but a solid close reading is an excellent aid for later analysis.  A lot of the details you’ll pick out of a close analysis won’t be useful for analysis (e.g. where Giovanni begs for forgiveness), but it can help you pick out repeated trends or themes.

Makes enough sense.  Just one small detail though, your last note about the whole wash-your-words-in-blood thing, Bonaventura probably isn’t suggesting Giovanni open a vein.  Bonaventura’s a friar, right?  And biblically–

Well hold on just a second.  Unfortunately, in a text-based analysis, you can’t cite things other than the text itself.  Of course, the bible is a text, but it’s not the text in question, the text that lies between the covers of TPSW.  For text-based analysis, you have to analyse the text in its own terms, not the bible’s, Plato’s or any of the other myriad works referenced in TPSW.

But … doesn’t that mean you’re missing out on a ton of possible valuable analysis?

You’re not wrong but we will get to that point, let’s return to the text.  There are three scenes in which Bonaventura attempts to dissuade Giovanni from pursuing (or further pursuing) his relationship with Annabella: I.i, II.v, and finally in V.iii.  All of the scenes follow a similar paradigm:

• Bonaventura and Giovanni enter the scene in the middle of a conversation about this incest. 
• Giovanni attempts to use what he’s learned in his studies to justify the incest, despite Bonaventura repeatedly declaring he wants to hear no more about it.
  • Interestingly, the logic Giovanni uses is platonic, coming from Plato and his students.  Platonism and Neo-Platonism ultimately have a great influence on Christianity, which Bonaventura will appeal to in order to refute Giovanni.  Of course, this lies outside the bounds of our text-based analysis.
• Bonaventura will acknowledge that he cannot find a fault in Giovanni’s reasoning.  But Bonaventura will counter that Giovanni is failing to consider that God considers it sinful.  As such, the discussion over Giovanni’s reasoning is moot as God’s view trumps what Giovanni could possibly reason out.  Thus, per Bonaventura, the incest is still sinful.
• Bonaventura underlines the consequences of incest are serious (while never explicitly describing those consequences) and proposes a solution.

Put more succinctly, there are two major dynamics at play.  The first is the most obvious, Giovanni wants to discuss the incest and its moral justification while Bonaventura does not.  The second is a dynamic of talking past one another, Giovanni and Bonaventura using different modes of argumentation to make their case while not directly engaging with each other.

Alright, but what of Bonaventura’s interactions with Annabella?

While the two have a few scenes together, there is only one where Bonaventura is actively dissuading Annabella from the incest.  It takes a remarkably different tone, let’s consider this excerpt from Bonaventura’s speech to Annabella in III.vi below:

Ay, you are wretched, miserably wretched, almost condemn’d alive. There is a place, list daughter, in a black and hollow vault,where day is never seen; there shines no sun, but flaming horror of consuming fires, a lightless sulphur, chok’d with smoky fogs of an infected darkness: in this place dwell many thousand thousand sundry sorts of never−dying deaths: there damned souls roar without pity; there are gluttons fed with toads and adders; there is burning oil pour’d down the drunkard’s throat; the usurer is forced to sup whole draughts of molten gold; there is the murderer for ever stabb’d, yet can he never die; there lies the wanton on racks of burning steel, whilst in his soul he feels the torment of his raging lust.

Jeez, Bonaventura really brings out the fire-and-brimstone here.

I wasn’t kidding when I said they differed.  Obviously this speech to Annabella focuses heavily on the actual suffering she will undergo in hell if she continues this incest.  This is in contrast to Bonaventura’s speeches to Giovanni which don’t feature actual descriptions of hell.  Additionally, there is less back-and-forth between Bonaventura and Annabella than with Giovanni, as Bonaventura is reading a lecture to Annabella (rather than having intellectual debate, as with Giovanni).  Finally, Bonaventura’s speeches to Annabella focus heavily on her guilt in this incest, assigning much of the blame to her for the relationship.  In fact, Bonaventura notes how, in hell, Giovanni will cry out “Oh, would my wicked sister had first been damn’d, when she did yield to lust!”, that it would’ve been better for her to have gone to hell before she tempted him to commit incest.  This is, of course, in stark contrast to how it actually plays out earlier, with Giovanni being the first to confess his feelings to Annabella.

I also think Bonaventura is trying to get an emotional response out of the audience with Bonaventura’s speech to Annabella.  It’s way over the top and bordering on needless cruelty, I couldn’t help but feel bad for her!

I don’t disagree, but this technically lies outside of text-based analysis.

But I’ve only referenced the text!

Not exactly, what you’ve referenced above is your emotional response to the text, which technically falls under reader-based analysis.  In text-based analysis, you’re supposed to leave your emotions at the door, so to speak.  This particular innovation comes to us from New Criticism, an early text-based school of analysis from the 20^th century United States.  New Critics try to avoid what they call the affective fallacy, where one falsely attributes purpose to a portion of text based on the emotional response elicited in the reader.  The argument goes that different readerships (e.g. different ethnicities, genders, etc) are going to have different emotional responses to a text, showings that the emotional response is not inherent to the text itself.  Thus, to have a true text-based analysis, you have to avoid the affective fallacy.

Now, to be clear, New Criticism has since fallen out of popularity and the affective fallacy has several valid critiques.  But one of the areas I think avoiding the affective fallacy is still valid is in historical literature or literature from different cultures to one’s own.  Because norms and values differ both between cultures and across time, you are much more likely to make a misreading of a text if you try to ascribe your own norms and values to a work that doesn’t share them.  A classic example of this is Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, in which Petruchio courts the eponymous shrew Katherina.  While it is a comedy, the play comes across far darker to modern audiences as many of Petruchio’s actions range from misogynistic to outright abusive.  To try and claim our modern reactions to The Taming of the Shrew were intended by Shakespeare would be a misreading, as the play would’ve been played for laughs in its day.

Fair enough, I’ll buy that.  But back to the text, what’s the actual significance of Bonaventura employing different strategies when speaking with Giovanni or Annabella?

At the end of the day, the content of Bonaventura’s speeches to Giovanni and Annabella are the same.  Bonaventura underlines the sinfulness of incest to both and that they’re going to go to hell if they don’t repent and swear off the relationship.  At the same time, he provides an out for them, God will forgive both so long as they repent. 

But this is the extent of the similarities.  Bonaventura and Giovanni share an academic dialogue on the incest while Annabella is simply given a lecture.  Additionally, Bonaventura often tries to avoid discussing the incest with Giovanni, contrasting with his lecture to Annabella where he explicitly describes the incest and its implications.  And finally, while Bonaventura avoids explicit discussions of hell with Giovanni, his lecture to Annabella is an extremely vivid description of eternal torment.

This difference in approach is suggestive of the different relationship between Bonaventura and the siblings.  An academic discussion with Giovanni makes sense because he is a “miracle of wit”, an incredibly bright student, and thus such an approach would resonate more with him.  While Annabella’s intelligence is not mentioned within TPSW, her younger age may be a factor in Bonaventura’s choice for a more emotive, less academic reprimand.  This may also be due to the different relationship between the two.  While Annabella is clearly familiar with Bonaventura, it is Giovanni who Bonaventura has spent years tutoring.  Such a close relationship between the two may have dissuaded Bonaventura from giving Giovanni the full fire-and-brimstone treatment he gave Annabella.  These are some of the strongest textual evidences for this disparity in treatment by Bonaventura.

Oh come on, you know that’s not the strongest explanation!  Let’s call a spade a spade, the difference in treatment has everything to do with gender.

You’re sounding more like me by the day!  Yes, I completely agree, a reading focused on gender is easily one of the strongest for both this question but also TPSW as a whole!  But–

Oh no, don’t tell me…

Yeah, that’s technically not text-based analysis.  If we were to consider this difference in treatment through the lens of gender, you are technically pulling from something outside of the text.  This is called context-based reading, as you’d be analysing TPSW within the greater context of patriarchy and gender norms (historical and present).

But then you’re missing out on valuable analysis!

I completely agree, but these are the limits of by text-based analysis.  You can use anything intratextual but nothing extratextual.  And this is a dynamic that’s going to repeat itself as we progress through author-based, reader-based and context-based analyses, each of these approaches has their benefits and drawbacks!  That is why a thorough analysis of any work is ultimately going to draw on all of these methods in consortium.  And as we progress with the ‘Tis Pity 360 project, we’ll be drawing on all of them in order to capture every angle of this excellent play.