Home > Richard II Summary & Study Guide > Two Shadow King of the Elizabethan Stage: Marlowe's Edward II and Shakespeare's Richard II

Richard II | Two Shadow King of the Elizabethan Stage: Marlowe's Edward II and Shakespeare's Richard II

Compares and contrasts two plays of the Elizabethan period: Christopher Marlowe's Edward II and Shakespeare's Richard II, particularly within the theme of the divine right of kings.

Composed within a few years of each other and drawn, in part, from the common source of Holinshed's Chronicles. Christopher Marlowe's Edward II and William Shakespeare's Richard II are in some ways strikingly similar. Both of these history plays relate the story of an English monarch who is deposed and eventually murdered. In each case, a regent's basic character defects contributes to his fate, both Marlowe's Edward II and Shakespeare's Richard II being unfit to rule. The two characters hold an exalted view of their divine right to reign, yet both waver, lapse into...

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