SOURCE: Lucow, Ben. “‘Seeds of Honour’: The Lady of Pleasure and The Cardinal.” In James Shirley, pp. 123-36. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1981.

In the following essay, Lucow examines the concept of honor in The Lady of Pleasure and The Cardinal.

Shirley is best known for two plays: a comedy, The Lady of Pleasure, and a tragedy, The Cardinal (often referred to as the last great tragedy of the English Renaissance). Although The Lady of Pleasure appears in the middle of Shirley's career and The Cardinal at the end, each represents in unique ways the culmination of Shirley's efforts in their respective genres. The Lady of Pleasure deserves its reputation as a brilliant comedy of manners; The Cardinal has more historical interest than intrinsic artistic merit: Shirley's forte was comedy. In the tragedies and tragicomedies his moral-didactic strain makes noble heroes and heroines often sound like mouthpieces for Royalist propaganda...