John Ford is arguably the last major dramatist of the English Renaissance. Though he is usually discussed along with the Jacobean playwrights, most of his dramatic work falls into the Caroline period. Judging by his plays, Ford himself seems to have had a sense of being a latecomer to the Renaissance dramatic scene. Coming as he did at the end of one of the most productive eras in the history of drama, Ford had a rich heritage to draw upon in shaping his own art. He clearly derived inspiration from his great predecessors, above all, Shakespeare, and his plays often have a reflective character, as if he were consciously harking back to earlier achievements in the genres in which he was working.

And yet the artistic heritage which sustained Ford also presented a challenge to him, the challenge of finding novel themes and stage effects long after writers...