![]() Written entirely in verse, Richard II foregrounds poetic language and probes the limitations of words to render meaning, while also displaying the rhetorical power of speech. ![]() These two foci revolve around the question of whether a king anointed by God is accountable to his subjects, and whether a nation dominated by factions can act as a legitimizing ‘body politic.’ As the debate unfolds, the play’s two principal characters, Richard and Bolingbroke, tease out ideas of kingship that are situated between Plato’s ideal of the philosopher-king, medieval notions of a divine king, and the early modern concept of the amoral ruler as outlined by Machiavelli in his Il Principe (1513). Shakespeare’s play can be read as a dramatic exploration of two interlinked themes which were prevalent at the time: political theology and national identity. With this set of four plays, Shakespeare re-invented a genre, going back to Aeschylus’s The Persians (472 BCE), that we now refer to as the history play. ![]() Richard II is part of a tetralogy that dramatizes the historical events from the deposition of Richard II to the reign of Henry V. ![]()
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