James Shirley (September 1596 – October 1666) was an English poet and playwright. In Charles Lamb's view, Shirley "claims a place among the worthies of this period, not so much for any transcendent genius in himself, as that he was the last of a great race, all of whom spoke nearly the same language and had a set of moral feelings and notions in common." He is known for deftly employing verse drama in the service of comedy (rather than tragedy). His career of play writing extended from 1625 to the suppression of stage plays by the Parliament of England in 1642.
Shirley was born in London and was descended from the Shirleys of Warwick, the oldest knighted family in Warwickshire. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, London, St John's College, Oxford, and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he took his BA degree in or before 1618.
His first poem, Echo, or the Unfortunate Lovers was published in 1618; no copy of it is known, but it is probably the same as 1646's Narcissus. Oxford biographer Anthony Wood reports that, after earning his MA, Shirley became "a minister of God's word in or near St Albans". He then left this post, apparently due to a conversion to the Roman Catholic faith, and was master of St Albans School from 1623 to 1625. His first play, Love Tricks, seems to have been written while he was teaching at St Albans.
In 1625 he returned to London, living in Gray's Inn. In the following 18 years, he wrote more than 30 regular plays, tragedies, comedies, and tragicomedies. Most of his plays were performed by Queen Henrietta's Men, the playing company for which Shirley served as house dramatist (much as William Shakespeare had for the King's Men).
Shirley's sympathies were with the King in his disputes with Parliament, and he received marks of special favour from the Queen. He made a bitter attack on William Prynne, who had attacked the stage in Histriomastix, and, in 1634 he supplied the text for The Triumph of Peace, a masque presented at Whitehall by the gentlemen of the Inns of Court as a practical reply to Prynne.
Between 1636 and 1640 Shirley went to Ireland, apparently under the patronage of the Earl of Kildare. Three or four of his plays were produced by his friend John Ogilby in Dublin's Werburgh Street Theatre, the first ever built in Ireland and at the time of Shirley's visit only one year old. During his Dublin stay, Shirley wrote The Doubtful Heir, The Royal Master, The Constant Maid, and St. Patrick for Ireland.
In 1640 he returned to London, and found that in his absence Queen Henrietta's Men had sold off a dozen of his plays to the stationers, who published them in the late 1630s. As a result, he would no longer work for Queen Henrietta's company, and the final plays of his London career were acted by the King's Men.
In 1642, his career as a playwright was stopped by the London theatre closure.
On the outbreak of the English Civil War, Shirley seems to have served with the Earl of Newcastle, but when the King's fortunes began to decline he returned to London. He owed something to the kindness of Thomas Stanley, but supported himself chiefly by teaching and publishing some educational works under the Commonwealth. Besides these, he published during the Commonwealth period four small volumes of poems and plays, in 1646, 1653, 1655 and 1659. He "was a drudge" for John Ogilby in his translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey.
He survived into the reign of Charles II, but did not again attempt to write for the stage, though some of his comedies were revived.
Wood says that Shirley, aged 70, and his second wife died of fright and exposure after the Great Fire of London, and were buried at St Giles in the Fields on 29 October 1666.
The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica says of Shirley's works:
Shirley was born to great dramatic wealth, and he handled it freely. He constructed his own plots out of the abundance of materials that had been accumulated during thirty years of unexampled dramatic activity. He did not strain after novelty of situation or character, but worked with confident ease and buoyant copiousness on the familiar lines, contriving situations and exhibiting characters after types whose effectiveness on the stage had been proved by ample experience. He spoke the same language with the great dramatists, it is true, but this grand style is sometimes employed for the artificial elevation of commonplace thought. "Clear as day" becomes in this manner "day is not more conspicuous than this cunning"; while the proverb "Still waters run deep" is ennobled into—
"The shallow rivers glide away with noise—
The violence and exaggeration of many of his contemporaries left him untouched. His scenes are ingeniously conceived, his characters boldly and clearly drawn; and he never falls beneath a high level of stage effect.
The following list includes years of first publication, and of performance if known, and dates of licensing by the Master of the Revels where available.
The Maid's Revenge (licensed 9 Feb 1626; first printed 1639)
The Traitor (licensed 4 May 1631; first printed 1635)