SOURCE: Sensabaugh, George F. “Platonic Love in Shirley's The Lady of Pleasure.” In A Tribute to George Coffin Taylor: Studies and Essays, Chiefly Elizabethan, by His Students and Friends, edited by Arnold Williams, pp. 168-77. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1952.

In the following essay, Sensabaugh examines Shirley's endorsement of Platonic love in The Lady of Pleasure, particularly focusing on the playwright's contrast of idealized, virtuous love in the main plot with base, immoral love in the subplot.

James Shirley, in The Lady of Pleasure, sharply satirized Caroline manners and morals in both town and court. Through Scentlove and Frederick, he made fun of fops and affected behavior; through the sordid assignation of Aretina and Kickshaw he laid bare lasciviousness in high quarters. Indeed, the main plot centers in Lord Bornwell's attempt to restrict Aretina's extravagance and looseness and is in itself an exposé of the...