SOURCE: Rosen, Carol C. “The Language of Cruelty in Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore.” In Drama in the Renaissance: Comparative and Critical Essays, edited by Clifford Davidson, C. J. Gianakaris, and John H. Stroupe, pp. 315-27. New York: AMS Press, 1986.

In the following essay, originally published in 1974, Rosen discusses 'Tis Pity She's a Whore within the context of Antonin Artaud's application of the tragedy to his theory of the theater of cruelty, concluding that Artaud fails to recognize that there is a fundamental balance between the cruel language and the violent action in the play.

Though Antonin Artaud has been popularly deified as the mad martyr of the modern theater, his critical The Theater and Its Double deserves careful consideration not merely as an essential element in the bizarre alchemy of contemporary drama, but also as a provocative approach to orthodox dramatic theory. Indeed, Artaud's infamous “First...