SOURCE: "The Decorum of Dying: The Broken Heart," in John Ford, Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1972, pp. 61-76.

In the essay below, Anderson offers a detailed survey of The Broken Heart, focusing on the play's major themes, dramatic structure, and sources.

I The Story and Its Sources

Although the order in which Ford's plays were written or performed is not known, The Broken Heart (first printed in 1633) and The Lover's Melancholy have more than enough in common to warrant sequential treatment. First of all, they are the only two of Ford's seven extant plays that belonged to the King's men (the company for which Shakespeare had written), and were performed by them at the Blackfriars playhouse. The other five dramas were printed for Christopher Beeston's companies at the Phoenix. This fact, together with the 1628 licensing date for The Lover's Melancholy, has led Bentley to suggest that...