Richard II (Vol. 81) | Charles R. Forker (essay date fall 2001)
Charles R. Forker (essay date fall 2001)
SOURCE: Forker, Charles R. “Unstable Identity in Shakespeare's Richard II.” Renascence 54, no. 1 (fall 2001): 3-22.
[In the following essay, Forker attributes Richard II's “unstable and mutable personality” to the tension between his position as king by divine right and his mortal fallibility.]
That which is now a horse, even with a thought The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct As water is in water. .....Here I am Antony, Yet cannot hold this visible shape. …
(Antony and Cleopatra 4.14.9-14)1
Antony's sudden, shaky sense of his own identity raises an issue that besets several of Shakespeare's tragic protagonists. In this essay I want to consider the character of Richard II as a case in point,2 to suggest that Richard's struggle to come to terms with the several aspects of his unique self not only lies at the heart of his personal...
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