God Save the King: Richard II in Wonder-land

Abstract

In his introduction to Wonder in Shakespeare, Adam Max Cohen argues that scholarship on wonder and the plays of Shakespeare has been “limited” as it focuses on the late romances or the tragedies.¹ While I agree with Cohen’s assertion, his argument opens up a space for the largely excluded history plays; in fact, the very texts that he highlights as being tragedy- and romance-centric² can be used to support the presence and value of wonder in the history cycles. This can be achieved, in part, by examining “wonder” or the “marvelous” through the marriage of tragic elements in historical literature. One play where this is profoundly important is The Tragedy of King Richard II, for it begins with an indictment of the hapless ruler and ends with a surge of sympathy and wonder (from both the audience and the characters) as he meets his sorrowful end. In this first play in the Henriad, Shakespeare’s Richard II offers the Elizabethan audience a blend of Tudor history with the tragic consequences of a challenge to the divine right of kings. With a nod to Cohen, then, I consider the concept of wonder as it relates to three specific aspects in Richard II: first, through the shift in audience perception of the hapless monarch, whose own identity is blurred; second, in the blurring of English identity and Queen Elizabeth in particular; and third, through Richard’s final scene. As in Shakespeare’s day, the resulting cocktail is served to modern audiences in an attempt to both praise and critique the concept of an English national identity.