Shakespeare, King Richard II
Pages Agreg-Ink consacrées à Richard II
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Ouvrages critiques publiqués sur Richard II
Study notes on Richard II
Richard II (the play) on Wikipedia
A UniversalTeacher Study Guide
Online Literature (from the Literature Network)
A Student's Guide (from "Surfing with the bard: your Shakespeare classroom on the Internet)
Critical articles on Richard II
The
Language of the Play
"This is one of Shakespeare's plays in which theatrical language
is not merely the narrative medium, but is also a subject of the drama:
the play is about language. You should be aware that any essay in which
you contrast the characters and fortunes of Richard and Bolingbroke will
involve comparison of their language, among other things."
The
Issue of Language: introduction to Richard II and Hamlet (by Ian Johnston,
July 1999)
"In choosing to offer the pairing of Richard II and Hamlet, I am
immediately aware of the considerable differences between the two plays.
However, this pairing will enable us to focus initially on an important
interpretative issue in Shakespeare's style, nowhere more evident than
in these two plays, the intimate link between important issues of characterization
and the styles of speech displayed by particular characters [...] "
Richard
II: The Rape of a Nation (by Brian Fleming, 1999)
"By bowing down to the needs of his subjects, a king allows others
to dictate his actions and hence compromises the essence of his power.
Paradoxically, failing to heed the desires of his subjects transforms
a king into a self-indulgent tyrant and propels his kingdom towards ruin
and decay. Can a sovereign rule his subjects without considering their
general welfare? If a king rules unconscionably, do his subjects have
the right to replace him? William Shakespeare's Richard II considers this
authoritarian quandary at great length [...]."
The
Garden Scene (Act III, scene four).
"The Garden Scene in Richard II is an important and pivotal moment
in the play, fulfilling a variety of textual and dramatic requirements
for both reader and audience. I personally found this scene to be one
of my favorites, and when I examined just why I enjoyed it so much, I
discovered that it had worked on me on a number of different levels, providing
plot update, allegory, exposition, and character contrast [...]"
(S. Graybill, University of South Carolina).
Narcissism and Metadrama (by Mark S. Graybill, University of South Carolina)
Richard
II and Edward II (Christopher Marlowe)
"One of the great topics of Elizabethan literature is that of the
nature of the monarchy. In Christopher Marlowe's Edward II and William
Shakespeare's Richard II, the issue of the justification of deposing a
tyrant is discussed. This essay compares the manner in which Marlowe and
Shakespeare portray the character of the king in their plays. Specifically,
the techniques used to portray the monarchs as both tyrants and noble
characters are compared. Although they are noble characters, both kings
are deposed because they are tyrants. While there are minor differences
in how the tyrants are portrayed, Marlowe and Shakespeare generally use
similar techniques. [...]"
The
Background to Richard II
"In Richard II, an early play, Shakespeare had not yet perfected
his writing skills. One of his weaknesses was to rely too heavily on the
pun (use of words of similar sound or spelling for humorous or unusual
effect) to engage the audience.[...]"
Richard
II: Shakespeare's "Perfect" History (by Ace G. Pilkington, originally
published in the Utah Shakespearean Festival Souvenir Program, 1993)
"As the perfecter of the English history play, Shakespeare has shaped
the version of history that many English speakers believe. In Kirby's
words, "From Shakespeare, of course, we can never escape whether
we wish to or not".
Shakespeare and The Renaissance
Stage
and State: The Censorship of Richard II (by Ruth Underhill)
"The early stage history of Richard II includes a fascinating piece
of evidence that shows how the drama of the time was considered to be
powerful in a political sense. A play that dramatized the deposing of
a king was seen as so potentially subversive to the state that the first
three edition of Richard II were published without the abdication scene:
it was censored. All plays had to be approved by the Master of the Revels--a
Court appointee--before performance or publication. The story of Shakespeare's
involvement (however marginal) in a famous rebellion of his time follows
. . ."
Derek Jacobi's Richard II: Ambiguities Answered
The real Richard II
Richard II on BBC Radio 4 History Page
Summary (by Mandel, Susannah. SparkNote on Richard II.)
"Richard II, written around 1595, is the first play
in Shakespeare's second "history tetralogy," a series of four
plays that chronicles the rise of the house of Lancaster to the British
throne. (Its sequel plays are Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2, and Henry V.)
Richard II, set around the year 1398, traces the fall from power of the
last king of the house of Plantagenet, Richard II, and his replacement
by the first Lancaster king, Henry IV (Henry Bolingbroke). Richard II,
who ascended to the throne as a young man, is a regal and stately figure,
but he is wasteful in his spending habits, unwise in his choice of counselors,
and detached from his country and its common people. He spends too much
of his time pursuing the latest Italian fashions, spending money on his
close friends, and raising taxes to fund his pet wars in Ireland and elsewhere.
When he begins to "rent out" parcels of English land to certain
wealthy noblemen in order to raise funds for one of his wars, and seizes
the lands and money of a recently deceased and much respected uncle to
help fill his coffers, both the commoners and the king's noblemen decide
that Richard has gone too far.
Richard has a cousin, named Henry Bolingbroke, who is a great favorite
among the English commoners. Early in the play, Richard exiles him from
England for six years due to an unresolved dispute over an earlier political
murder. The dead uncle whose lands Richard seizes was the father of Bolingbroke;
when Bolingbroke learns that Richard has stolen what should have been
his inheritance, it is the straw that breaks the camel's back. When Richard
unwisely departs to pursue a war in Ireland, Bolingbroke assembles an
army and invades the north coast of England in his absence. The commoners,
fond of Bolingbroke and angry at Richard's mismanagement of the country,
welcome his invasion and join his forces. One by one, Richard's allies
in the nobility desert him and defect to Bolingbroke's side as Bolingbroke
marches through England. By the time Richard returns from Ireland, he
has already lost his grasp on his country.
There is never an actual battle; instead, Bolingbroke peacefully takes
Richard prisoner in Wales and brings him back to London, where Bolingbroke
is crowned King Henry IV. Richard is imprisoned in the remote castle of
Pomfret in the north of England, where he is left to ruminate upon his
downfall. There, an assassin, who both is and is not acting upon King
Henry's ambivalent wishes for Richard's expedient death, murders the former
king. King Henry hypocritically repudiates the murderer and vows to journey
to Jerusalem to cleanse himself of his part in Richard's death. As the
play concludes, we see that the reign of the new King Henry IV has started
off inauspiciously."