Similar to our class discussion of doubling in “The Duchess of Malfi,” the first two acts of Ford’s play seem to reveal how Giovanni and Annabella (siblings) are in love because of their ‘sameness,’ a factor that normally obstructs erotic desire (we’ve previously explored this mirroring in Donne’s “The Cannonization”: “By us; we two being one, are it.”)

Annabella’s beauty is “the frame and composition” which Giovanni follows. He is not in love with her character, or her intelligence, or her “soul,” even though Neoplatonic tradition argues that the body is just a vessel for the soul (and that the soul will be released when the body dies).