Insight

 In a small, bustling town, an attempted theft at a well-known jewelry showroom sent shockwaves through the community. The thieves had meticulously planned the heist, cutting the power to the building and disabling the security system before slipping in during the dead of night. They made off with a collection of priceless jewels, leaving the police with little to go on. However, the showroom owner, Mr. Sharma, had recently installed a cutting-edge tracking system on the most valuable pieces, which was unknown to the thieves. As soon as the theft was discovered, the police activated the system and traced the signal to an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of town. There, in a dusty corner, they found the stolen jewels hidden inside a false wall. The thieves, unaware of the tracking devices, had planned to lie low until the heat died down. But the police, acting quickly and quietly, surrounded the warehouse and apprehended the culprits without incident. The jewels were returned to...

  Historical Context: The Divine Appointment of English Kings An important question that preoccupies the characters in Shakespeare’s “histories” and which links these plays is whether the king of England is divinely appointed—that is, whether he is God’s “deputy anointed in his sight,” as John of Gaunt says in  Richard II  (1.2.40). If such is the case, then the overthrow, deposition, or, worst of all, murder of a king is akin to blasphemy. In Shakespeare’s works, as in the classical Greek tragedies (such as Aeschylus’s  Oresteia  trilogy), such an act may cast a long shadow over the reign of the king who deposes or murders his predecessor, and even over his descendants. This shadow, which manifests itself in the form of literal ghosts in plays such as  Hamlet ,  Macbeth ,  Julius Caesar , and  Richard III , also looms over  Richard II  and its sequels:  Henry IV, Part 1 ;  Henry IV, Part 2 ; and  Henry V . In the play that bears his name, Ri...

  Literary Context: Shakespeare's "Histories" “Histories” was one of three designations (along with “Comedies” and “Tragedies”) used to categorize the plays of William Shakespeare in the highly influential “First Folio” collection of his plays published in 1623, about seven years after Shakespeare’s death in 1616. The three designations have held up remarkably well in the 500 years since they were made, especially for the ten plays that were categorized as histories. Many of Shakespeare’s plays that are set in the historical past are not categorized as “histories”—even those such as  Julius Caesar  and  Hamlet  that treat similar themes as  bona fide  histories including kingship, revolt, and royal intrigues. The ten “histories” are all fictionalized accounts of an English monarch who would have been reasonably well known to Shakespeare and his audience. Eight of these ten plays form a series that is linked through a continuous string of kings’ reigns ...

 William Shakespeare: Biography &  Background on Richard -II  William Shakespeare (1564-1616) The most influential writer in all of English literature, William Shakespeare was born in 1564 to a successful middle-class glove maker in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. Shakespeare attended grammar school, but his formal education proceeded no further. In 1582 he married an older woman, Anne Hathaway, and had three children with her. Around 1590 he left his family behind and traveled to London to work as an actor and playwright. Public and critical acclaim quickly followed, and Shakespeare eventually became the most popular playwright in England and part-owner of the Globe Theater. His career bridged the reigns of Elizabeth I (ruled 1558–1603) and James I (ruled 1603–1625), and he was a favorite of both monarchs. Indeed, James granted Shakespeare’s company the greatest possible compliment by bestowing upon its members the title of King’s Men. Wealthy and renowned, Shakespeare...