SOURCE: Belsey, Catherine. “Tragedy, Justice, and the Subject.” In 1642: Literature and Power in the Seventeenth Century, edited by Francis Barker, pp. 166-86. Colchester, England: Department of Literature, University of Essex, 1981.

In the following essay, Belsey examines The Cardinal in the contexts of Renaissance revenge tragedy and changing perceptions of political authority.

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Shirley's tragedy, The Cardinal, was performed by the King's Men in 1641. The Cardinal is the revenge play to end all revenge plays (literally, I want to argue). Most obviously, it combines motifs from Hamlet, The Spanish Tragedy, The Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil. Less obviously, at least to bourgeois criticism in quest of the essential coherence of the text, The Cardinal spectacularly gives way under the pressure of precisely those contradictions which are held in precarious balance in earlier revenge plays.

‘Revenge tragedy’ is a modern category with no Renaissance authority.¹ It was produced by...