SOURCE: "Shakespeare," in The Moral Vision of Jacobean Tragedy, 1960. Reprint by University of Wisconsin Press, 1965, pp. 222-76.

In the following excerpt, Ornstein discusses the significance of honor and chivalry in Troilus and Cressida.

After the melancholy deeps of Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida and Measure for Measure seem strange interludes of mockery and denigration, retreats from the tragedy of evil to the comedy of vice. They are problems if not problem plays, "un-Shakespearean" in temper and viewpoint, ambiguous in characterization. They seem to turn ideals of chivalry, justice, and mercy seamy side out. The lecher leers over the virgin's shoulder; the romantic idealist falls in love with a whore; one touch of nature in the loins makes the whole world kin. But they are not so much comical satires as dialectical dramas in the manner of Byron's Conspiracy; like Chapman's play they approach the issues of tragedy ironically and...