SOURCE: Burks, Deborah G. “‘This Sight Doth Shake All That Is Man within Me’: Sexual Violation and the Rhetoric of Dissent in The Cardinal.” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 26, no. 1 (winter 1996): 153-90.

In the following essay, Burks discusses the political implications of sexual violence in The Cardinal.

When it was performed in the winter of 1641, The Cardinal, James Shirley's play about a weak king manipulated by a malicious prelate, entered into a fierce debate about the power wielded by the Anglican prelacy in both church and state. Shirley's play represents the Cardinal's abuse of power through the rape and murder of his ward, the Duchess Rosaura. Rape and murder, used in the play as sensational shorthand to protest the abuses of this theatrical villain, are not merely the standard fare of tragic drama but also important elements of the political rhetoric of dissent in use among...