Richard II (Vol. 39) | John Halverson (essay date 1994)
John Halverson (essay date 1994)
SOURCE: "The Lamentable Comedy of Richard II," in English Literary Renaissance, Vol. 24, No. 2, Spring, 1994, pp. 343-69.
[In the essay below, Halverson provides an overview of the criticism surrounding the genre of Richard II and concludes that the play is a history with comic overtones in which Shakespeare examines the nature of kingship.]
Although all the quartos of Richard II use the word "tragedy" on the title-pages, the First Folio prefers the more noncommittal "Life and Death of Richard II." This may have no particular significance, but it is evidently not just a matter of conformity with the category of "history" since the Folio does keep the designation "tragedy" for Richard III (the only history play so titled). It may be that Heminge and Condell, from their intimate experience with Shakespeare's mature tragedies, decided that the traditional genre designation was...
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