SOURCE: Wertheim, Albert. “Games and Courtship in James Shirley's Hyde Park.” Anglia 90, nos. 1-2 (1972): 71-91.

In the following essay, Wertheim discusses Shirley's technique of mirroring the amorous competition in the racing and gambling competitions in Hyde Park.

I

The realistic comedies of James Shirley are frequently cited as forerunners of the urbane social comedies of the Restoration, for they vividly portray the elegant and spirited world of London's upper middle class and aristocracy under the reign of Charles I. In their presentation of couples who, like Congreve's Mirabell and Millamant or Etherege's Dorimant and Harriet, spar wittily with one another, Shirley's comedies are also viewed as antecedents of Restoration manners comedies¹. One aspect of Shirley's comedies—and indeed of Caroline drama in general—that has not received the attention it warrants is the fact that they were written, like their Restoration descendents, for a specialized, select, well-to-do, coterie...