CRITICISM

Clapp, Susannah. “Agincourt, Near Basra.” Observer (18 May 2003): 11.

Positively reviews Jonathan Kent's 2003 Almeida Theatre staging of Richard II, emphasizing Ralph Fiennes's “always intelligent and always interesting” performance of the title role.

Cowan, Louise. “God Will Save the King: Shakespeare's Richard II.” In Shakespeare as Political Thinker, edited by John Alvis and Thomas G. West, pp. 63-81. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 1981.

Posits that Richard's transgressions as a divine-right king bring to an end the idyllic, prelapsarian medieval age and usher in a modern era of pragmatic politics in England.

Grady, Hugh. “The Discourse of Princes in Richard II: From Machiavelli to Montaigne.” In Shakespeare, Machiavelli, and Montaigne: Power and Subjectivity from Richard II to Hamlet, pp. 58-108. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Maintains that while both Richard and Bolingbroke embrace Machiavellian principles early on in Richard II, it is the deposed king who ultimately disregards Machiavelli and pursues a Montaignean retreat from the world to contemplate his own subjectivity.

Healy, Margaret. William Shakespeare: Richard II. Plymouth, U.K.: Northcote House, in association with the British Council, 1998, 88 p.

Seeks to underscore the modernity of Richard II through an analysis of its principal political, moral, and ideological themes.

Heller, Agnes. “Richard II.” In The Time Is Out of Joint: Shakespeare as Philosopher of History, pp. 162-89. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002.

Discusses Shakespeare's treatment of politics and history in Richard II, observing that while Bolingbroke's usurpation and subsequent regicide of Richard is politically expedient, the Lancastrian dynasty pays a price historically in the form of divine retribution.

Holderness, Graham. “‘A Woman's War’: A Feminist Reading of Richard II.” In Shakespeare Left and Right, edited by Ivo Kamps, pp. 167-83. New York: Routledge, 1991.

Examines how the feminine interrogation of masculine identity underscores Shakespeare's dramatization of the marginalization of women in Richard II.

Liebler, Naomi Conn. “The Mockery King of Snow: Richard II and the Sacrifice of Ritual.” In True Rites and Maimed Rites: Ritual and Anti-Ritual in Shakespeare and His Age, edited by Linda Woodbridge and Edward Berry, pp. 220-39. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992.

Maintains that Richard II dramatizes a historical turning point in which ritualistic medieval policies organized around religion are replaced by secular early modern political values.

Menon, Madhavi. “Richard II and the Taint of Metonymy.” ELH 70, no. 3 (fall 2003): 653-75.

Contends that Shakespeare's use of metonymy—a figure of speech which substitutes the name of one thing for that which it is commonly associated—in Richard II reveals an underlying rhetoric of sexual desire, particularly in the circumstances surrounding Richard's murder.

Norbrook, David. “‘A Liberal Tongue’: Language and Rebellion in Richard II.” In Shakespeare's Universe: Renaissance Ideas and Conventions: Essays in Honour of W. R. Elton, edited by John M. Mucciolo, pp. 37-51. Aldershot, U.K.: Scolar Press, 1996.

Argues that Shakespearean scholars may have “selectively misinterpreted” the historical and political contexts tied to the major themes in Richard II in order to accentuate the drama's prominent role in the Essex Rebellion.

Siemon, James R. “The Lamentable Tale of Me: Intonation, Politics, and Religion in Richard II.” In Word against Word: Shakespearean Utterance, pp. 172-209. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002.

Analyzes the lyrical quality of Richard's verse dialogue in terms of M. M. Bakhtin's linguistic theories of tonality and utterance, observing how the drama's poetic form transforms Richard's personal lamentation into a broader ideological discourse of state politics.

Smith, Molly. “Mutant Scenes and ‘Minor’ Conflicts in Richard II.” In A Feminist Companion to Shakespeare, edited by Dympna Callaghan, pp. 263-75. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 2000.

Argues that the female characters in Richard II represent “oppositional modes of discourse” that are ignored by Richard but authenticated to a certain degree by Bolingbroke.