Shakespeare’s Richard II, God, and Language

About the Book

This book presents an in-depth view of the extraordinary revisionist language Shakespeare gives to his most royal of all kings, from the time Richard falls dramatically out of favor with God.

Readers will find this book most useful in seeking to disentangle the play’s notoriously elaborate verbal presentation, but what the author brings out in connection with Richard’s approach to language should move performers themselves to seek to present in future a more creatively dynamic Richard than the one we have thus far been required to accept.

Especially does this book help one to see more clearly how before Shakespeare’s difficult re-emergence in his late plays, before all the tragedy, before the fall, there was—God.

“John O’Meara’s…work…displays an alert and delicate sensitivity to language and metaphor…” Arthur Kinney, English Language Notes

Cover Photo:

by RegWilson

© The Royal Shakespeare Company

Alan Howard as Richard II

in the 1980

Royal Shakespeare Company Production

at Stratford-Upon-Avon

Back Photo

by

A.F.

About the Author

Born in Montreal, Canada, John O’Meara received his Ph.D in 1986 from the University of East Anglia. He taught for over 20 years in the English departments of the University of Toronto and the University of Ottawa.