When Edmund challenges himself to conjure the worst prophecy he can think of for the forthcoming eclipse, he not only anticipates the plot of King Lear, but also highlights the fears of Tudor political society as

unnaturalness between the child and...

Known as a fine interpreter of human thought and action, William Shakespeare often relied on gender roles and stereotypes to create within the audience an opinion of a character or event. Since Elizabethan society made such great distinctions...

Thus I play in one person many people,

And none contented. Sometimes I am king,

Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar,

And so I am.

V:v:31-34, King Richard II

While entangled in the throes of dramatic suspense, the self-reflexive concept of...

In the study of three of Shakespeare's plays, Twelfth Night, or What You Will, The Tragedy of Richard II, and Henry IV, Part 1, one of the themes that is presented is the contrast of "appearance vs. reality." Sometimes the confusion is comedic,...

What does an author intend to convey when he repeats certain words throughout a novel or a play? William Shakespeare uses this rhetorical strategy in his famous historical play, King Richard II. The two words "sacred" and "subject" are repeated...

Although the mighty king persona is almost always on display in the characters of Richard II, Henry IV, and Henry V, the audience is at times presented with the inner workings found within the deep recesses of each monarch’s mind. The reader and...

Several of Shakespeare’s plays, including historical and tragedy, involve the political intrigue which results in the killing of a king. While the action revolving around this event may involve many more obvious themes, it is interesting to note...

Shakespeare’s history plays tend to focus on the drama of the rise and fall of kings, as we see in both Richard II and Henry IV Part 1. While the outcome of these stories was known to the theatergoers of his time, Shakespeare retold these stories...

In William Shakespeare’s Richard II, 1 Henry IV and 2 Henry IV, the idea of kingship undergoes radical transformation produced by Bolingbroke’s rebellion. Before this rebellion, the king is regarded as sacred, inviolable and divinely ordained....

Richard II by William Shakespeare is a historical play that chronicles part of the rule and eventual downfall of King Richard II of England. Simultaneously, the play also showcases the rise of Henry Bolingbroke to the throne. Shakespeare employs...

Oftentimes when writing historical fiction, authors take creative liberties in their works. William Shakespeare was no different when he wrote his history plays. In Shakespeare’s English Kings, Peter Saccio discusses such discrepancies. In the...

In Richard II, Henry IV and Henry V, Shakespeare appears on a micro level not to support divine right as characters throughout the plays consistently disrespect God and try to act above Him, yet when viewed more holistically it is clear that...

Throughout history, women have often been characterised as subordinate to men, their thoughts, feelings, and actions labelled as excessive or insignificant. In Shakespeare’s Richard III this phenomenon is subverted, his representation of Margaret...

Buckingham largely acts as a foil to Richard of Gloucester throughout much of Richard III. Both hubristic in their own ways, the pair are clearly two of a kind when it comes to their mastery of rhetoric and persuasion, having little difficulty in...

The resonances and dissonances between Shakespeare Richard III and Al Pacino’s Looking For Richard reveal that composers are responding to the contextual influences of their time. Shakespeare’s Richard III is heavily influenced by the value...

Given that Shakespeare’s primary motivation for writing Richard III was less fueled by a desire to accurately depict the objective truth regarding the title character’s short-lived tenure as England’s monarch, than it was by the intention of...

Few would likely disagree with Emily Sloan-Pace’s claim about the practically non-existent role of women in Shakespeare’s history plays: “Though women regularly assume starring roles in the comedies and tragedies, the history plays remain largely...

When Edmund challenges himself to conjure the worst prophecy he can think of for the forthcoming eclipse, he not only anticipates the plot of King Lear, but also highlights the fears of Tudor political society as

unnaturalness between the child and...

Shakespeare's Richard III is a play pervasive in figurative language, one of the most notable being the symbolic image of the sun and the shadow it casts. In an examination of a short passage from the text, it will be argued that Richard is...

'Distortum vultum sequitur distortio morum.'

[Distortion of character follows a distorted countenance.] --Thomas More

Shakespeare's Richard III from the so-titled play shares the unsettling characteristic of being expressly "determined to prove a...

In William Shakespeare's Richard III, Richard opens the play by informing the audience that, since he is "not shap'd for sportive tricks " (I.i.16) that are expected in the peacetime following the York's victory, he can only prove a spiteful,...

Shakespeare's Richard III and Coriolanus are both characters who possess all the qualities of potentially invincible, fearless, and heroic warriors. They fail to emerge as heroes because neither of them are able to live beyond their idealistic...

And lived with looking on his images;

But now two mirrors of his princely semblance

Are cracked in pieces by malignant death,

And I for comfort have but one false glass

That grieves me when I see my shame in him.

Thus does the Duchess of York lament...

From the very opening of William Shakespeare's tragic historical drama Richard III, the isolation of the main protagonist is made quite clear, for Richard progressively separates himself from the other main characters and gradually breaks the...