"To Shakespeare's contemporaries, Richard II was a balanced dramatisation of the central political and constitutional issue of the time: how to cope with an unjust ruler. But over the last century or so, the play has come to be regarded as the poetic fall of a tragic hero. The introduction to this edition provides a full context for both the Shakespearean and the modern views of King Richard's fall." "For this updated edition Andrew Gurr has added a new section to the Introduction in which he describes the growing interest in re-historicising and re-politicising the play, surveys a number of important professional theatre productions and guides the reader through the scholarly criticism of recent years. The Reading List has also been revised and augmented."--Jacket.

Abbreviations and conventions -- Introduction -- Date -- History -- Sources -- Structure -- Imagery -- Language -- Staging -- Stage history -- Recent stage and critical interpretations -- Note on the text -- List of characters -- The play -- Textual analysis -- Appendixes: Shakespeare's use of Holinshed -- Extracts from Daniel's The civil wars -- 'An Homilie Against Disobedience' -- Extracts from England's Parnassus -- Reading list.