SOURCE: Clark, Ira. “Shirley's Social Comedy of Adaptation to Degree.” In Professional Playwrights: Massinger, Ford, Shirley, & Brome, pp. 112-54. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1992.

In the following essay, Clark argues that Shirley's plays reinforce aristocratic values.

Shirley's Reverence for Degree

“I never affected the ways of flattery: some say I have lost my preferment, by not practising that Court sin.”¹ So claimed Shirley in 1639, finally dedicating his second play and first tragedy, The Maid's Revenge (1626), “come late to the impression.” This oft-noted asseveration was made by a poet-playwright who could make some claim to privilege (far more than Brome, perhaps more than Massinger, distinctly less than Ford), enough to display a coat of arms. One wondrous season, 1633-34, he was identified as a gentleman, a member of Gray's Inn, and “one of the Valets of the Chamber of Queen Henrietta Maria”; he championed the court's interest in...