num_pages: 240
description: The times have forced changes in the way we look at Richard II more than any other of Shakespeare's plays. What to his contemporaries was a balanced dramatisation of the central political and constitutional issue of the time, how to cope with an unjust ruler, has in the last century or so been translated into the poetic fall of a tragic hero. The introduction to this new edition of the play provides a full context for both the Shakespearean and the modern views of King Richard's fall. It relates the play's construction, imagery and staging to contemporary concerns and describes the changing views about Richard's deposition by means of a stage history. The accompanying illustrations suggest Elizabethan ideas of kingship and the staging of the play. The commentary is more detailed than for any previous edition of the play, and assimilates the most recent scholarship. The appendixes discuss the basis for Shakespeare's selection of material for his sources in this most carefully researched and composed of his history plays.
language: English
title: King Richard II
titlecomplete: King Richard II (The New Cambridge Shakespeare)
characters: Thomas Merke, Bishop of Carlisle, 2nd Gardener's Man, William le Scrope, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, King of Mann, Joan Holland, Sir William Bushy, 1st Lady, Henry Percy "Hotspur", Henry IV of England, Henry V of England, Edward of Langley, 2nd Duke of York, 1st Gardener's Man, Sir Piers Exton, Isabella of Valois, Keeper of Pomfret Prison, Groom, Edward, 2nd Duke of York, Duke of Aumerle, 2nd Lady, Walter FitzWalter, 4th (or 5th) Baron FitzWalter, John Montagu, 3rd Earl of Salisbury, Thomas de Berkeley, 5th Baron Berkeley, Lord Marshal, Gardener, Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland, William Willoughby, 5th Baron Willoughby de Eresby, Sir Edward Bagot, Eleanor de Bohun, Duchess of Gloucester, 2nd Herald, John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, Richard II of England, Thomas Holland, 1st Duke of Surrey, Welsh Captain, William de Colchester, Abbott of Westminster, William de Ros, 6th Baron Ros, Sir Stephen Scroop, Thomas de Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk, 1st Herald, Sir Henry Greene
genres: Historical Fiction, Theatre, Historical, School, Drama, Plays, Poetry, Literature, Classics, Fiction
ratings_count: 24174
series: Wars of the Roses
publisher: Cambridge University Press