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A Courtier or a Prince: Shakespeare's Richard II as a Dramatization of Conflicting Paradigms of Political Craftsmanship

This essay explores Shakespeare's Richard II as a dramatic case study for the political methodologies of Machiavelli and Castiglione, as well as Pico della Mirandola's Oration on the Dignity of Man, which are examined as intersecting paradigms for self-fashioning and political dominance. Shakespeare's Richard is presented as a prince who, in addition to making serious strategic mistakes, fails to project a virtù sufficient to overcome the devastating peripheral conditions of his reign. Though the usurper of the throne, Richard's cousin Harry Bolingbroke, emerges as a consummate Machiavellian prince, his position is troubled by his inability to entirely disregard the spiritual nature of power which he has rejected with his bid for the crown. The public display of power necessitates ritual manifestation, which is utterly at odds with a utilitarian characterization of power, but quite consistent with a numinous or spiritually endowed basis for kingship. Bolingbroke, however, skillfully glosses his utilitarian approach with traditionally popular elements – bis “common touch” combined with his understanding of civic ritual, and authorized by humanist ideals of man as a self-realizing creature he ultimately prevails as a ruler.