Hello, all! This is just a note that I have recently returned from a trip abroad, where I did not have access to my computer and therefore could not keep you updated on which books I had finished. Therefore, there will be three book reviews coming out at the same time, even though I finished them at different times. 

When critics discuss Shakespeare’s greatness, there are often a few areas of his plays which are honed in on most closely. For example, some critics might want to focus the most on the political/social landscape which Shakespeare was writing during, some might focus on his unparalleled aesthetics of language, and some might focus on his characters and their psychologies. In Shakespeare’s Richard II there is greatness aplenty to tear into from all three of those angles. In truth, this is my second time reading Richard II, as the first time I read it I had to metaphorically rub my eyes a bit and relook some passages when I had finished. By that time I had read some of his best work: Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, King Lear, and Hamlet for example. Nothing—not one play among them—had utterly floored me quite like Richard II. Perhaps it was because Richard II is so little discussed, often credited as one of Shakespeare’s mid-tier plays, that I was not expecting to be so completely staggered by its genius and artistic merit. But upon a second reread, just to be sure I had understood it fully and thoroughly, I can safely say that Richard II is, unabashedly, my favorite Shakespeare play and one of the best works of fiction, or rather, best works of art I have ever come across. 

What is Richard II even about? Technically, Richard II is part of a series of historical plays, followed by Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2, Henry V, all three parts of Henry VI, and Richard III. Richard II follows the titular English monarch as he slowly loses control over his kingdom in the wake of Henry Bolingbroke’s might, who would thereafter be called Henry IV. The play begins with Richard trying to solve a dispute between two nobles, one of them Henry Bolingbroke himself, and the other Thomas Mowbray. Bolingbroke has accused Mowbray of murdering his uncle and Mowbray fires back that Bolingbroke is slandering his name, leading to both men agreeing to a trial by combat. Richard II is uncomfortable by the idea of their fight (perhaps because he himself potentially killed Henry’s uncle) and ends up banishing the two nobles. As Richard then steals Henry Bolingbroke’s inheritance after his father, John of Gaunt, dies, Henry mans an army to retaliate and ends up usurping the throne. Richard is sent to exile himself where he is assassinated by loyalists of Henry’s cause, thus ending the play. 

Now, with a surface-level summary of the plot, what makes Richard II Shakespeare’s magnum opus in my eyes? I think it lies mainly in Shakespeare’s writing and in the character of King Richard himself. The historical background of Richard II is quite interesting as well, such as when it openly questions the divine right of kings, but I’ll hew closest to merely the play’s substance itself regardless of historical background, mainly for sake of brevity. 

To start with language, Richard II has been called Shakespeare’s “most poetic play” because every single line is written in verse. Thus, Richard II acts as one great, poetic song with highly grandiloquent language (something Shakespeare himself will experiment with for King Richard). But besides the flowery, utterly beautiful language you can expect from any decent Shakespeare play, the—for lack of better wording—careful sculpting of the dialogue is beyond anything I have ever seen. Richard II is a play made of many recurrent motifs, such as the divine right of kings, where one’s loyalties lie, kinship and family, the sun as a symbol for the king, gender roles, and much more. With so many ideas being juggled around at once, it would have been easy to unbalance the narrative or leave ideas out. However, virtually every line of dialogue in Richard II from page one is answered by another line from somewhere else in the play. By that, I mean if one line of dialogue references the true meaning of friendship and human connection, that same line of thought will be met and expanded upon later in the play. Thus, Richard II makes for an unbelievably “carefully sculpted” play, perfectly measured to be as purposeful and meaningful as possible. 

Now to discuss the King. King Richard is single-handedly the best character study I have ever come across in an author’s work, simply because you cannot just say he acts like a real, specific kind of person, but you know he thinks like one too. So often I come across critics/zealots of Shakespeare who talk about his characters more like they are real people. After Richard II, I can see why. 

King Richard himself is a young man, coddled by sycophants his whole life, with unchecked power to do whatever he wants. Because of the divine right of kings mentality, Richard considers himself the hand of God himself, and, as previously mentioned, speaks in an overly-flowery, purple prose language, which is very purposeful. Richard II is a man who is both overly-emotional and overly-rationalistic, lamenting his fate in the dirt when he hears of Bolingbroke’s advances while monologuing so much to try to justify his overwhelming emotions. His “Death of Kings” monologue in Act III is one of Shakespeare’s best pieces of writing, and is so powerful when it comes because of how much Richard has been flattered and lied to his whole life. Richard II has abundant motifs of words over actions, and mouths or tongues slandering or flattering people, and King Richard has been mindlessly flattering his whole life. In the Death of Kings speech, Richard begs his own men not to lie to him anymore, saying: “For you have but mistook me all this while:/ I live with bread like you, feel want, /Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus, /How can you say to me, I am a king?” By the time Bolingbroke takes the throne, Richard is torn between desire for the power he once had and the new freedom he has away from kingship and flattery and scheming. In summary, Richard is an inconsistent, overly-sentimental, childish, and grandiloquent ruler that one can simply understand how he thinks based on how he acts. And the most incredible part is that Shakespeare does not write a single other character like he writes Richard! King Richard is a one of a kind tour-de-force of psychological depth unlike anything I have ever come across in any fictional media, and, if you have not read it already, I cannot more highly recommend you read it yourself, and share what you think!