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14 Shakespeare’s Tragedy and English History
Get accessAndrew Hadfield is Professor of English at the University of Sussex, Visiting Professor at the University of Granada, and Founding Director of the Centre for Early Modern Studies at Sussex. He is the author of a number of works on early modern literature, including Shakespeare and Republicanism (Cambridge University Press, 2005; paperback, 2008); Literature, Travel and Colonialism in the English Renaissance, 1540–1625 (Oxford University Press, 1998; paperback, 2007); Spenser's Irish Experience: Wilde Fruyt and Salvage Soyl (Oxford University Press, 1997); and Literature, Politics and National Identity: Reformation to Renaissance (Cambridge University Press, 1994). He has also edited, with Matthew Dimmock, Religions of the Book: Co-existence and Conflict, 1400–1660 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); with Raymond Gillespie, The Oxford History of the Irish Book, Vol. III: The Irish Book in English, 1550–1800 (Oxford University Press, 2006); and with Paul Hammond, Shakespeare and Renaissance Europe (Cengage, Arden Critical Companions, 2004); and Literature and Censorship in Renaissance England (Palgrave Macmillan, 2001). He was editor of Renaissance Studies (2006–11) and is a regular reviewer for The Times Literary Supplement.
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Published:02 November 2016
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Abstract
In the history plays of the 1590s Shakespeare covers most of late medieval English history, representing the struggle between the rival claimants to the crown and the people as a tragedy. Shakespeare was influenced by the verse tragedies in A Mirror for Magistrates—as well as by Holinshed’s Chronicles—which presented history as a series of stories from which relevant morals could be drawn. In following A Mirror Shakespeare had one eye on the present, articulating the fear that history might repeat itself and produce yet another tragedy. In his plays Shakespeare represents a series of kings with varying personalities and abilities struggling to rule in trying circumstances, each living out his own tragedy, leaving the audience to work out the relevance and significance of the plays. In this chapter I provide specific readings of Richard II, Richard III and King John.
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