SOURCE: Nogami, Katsuhiko. “The Rationalization of Conflicts in John Ford's The Lady's Trial.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, 32, No. 2, (Spring, 1992): 341-59.

In the following essay, Nogami examines Ford's sophisticated use of dualities in The Lady's Trial to achieve unconventional dramatic effects.

The assumption that John Ford, as a Renaissance playwright, was wholly bound by the dramatic conventions of his time was notably refuted by Robert Stanley Forsythe in his assiduous examination of the interrelationship among English Renaissance plays: “Ford creates a problem which he studies and analyzes during a play, without any regard for the inculcation of a lesson by its solution. … Two courses were open to the dramatist of this period: to carry on the established traditions or to seek out new material. Ford did the latter; almost all other dramatists did the former.”¹ The recent rise of critical comment on John Ford's last play, The Lady's...