This is a "Keeping Track" for Shakespeare' s play "Richard II" and typically comes up on paper 1 for A-Level English Literature B. The keeping track is a plot summary of each act in the play with setting/location of the scene, key characters, key quotes from the scene, tragic features of the scene ...
,Key (characters):
• Richard
• Queen Isabel
• John of Gaunt
• Duke of Lancaster
• Duke of York
• Henry Bolingbroke/Duke of Hereford
• Aumerle/Earl of Rutland
• Thomas Mowbray/Duke of Norfolk
• Bushy/Bagot/Green
• Bishop of Carlisle
• Abbot of Westminster
• Earl of Northumberland
• Harry Percy
• Lord Ross
• Lord Willoughby
• Sir Piers of Exton
• Earl of Salisbury
• Lord Berkely
• Lord Fitzwater à Asparagus
• Duke of Surrey
• Duchess of Gloucester
• Duchess of York
• Captain (of the Welsh army)
• Gardener
• Keeper (of the prison at Pomfret)
• Groom à Maroon
• Scroop à Strawberry
, Characters: Location:
King Richard II Bullingbrook Thomas Windsor Castle
Mowbray John of Gaunt Act I, Scene i
Summary:
Richard asks his uncle (John of Gaunt) to bring forward his son (Henry Herford) and get him to speak his issue to
the King. Bullingbrook and Mowbray flatter Richard before they begin to plead their case to the monarchy.
Bullingbrook says that Mowbray is a traitor and will fight Thomas to keep what he is saying true. Mowbray denies
it and tells Richard to not let his blood relation to Bullingbrook manipulate his decision which Richard confirms will
not happen. Bullingbrook challenges Mowbray by throwing his gage and Mowbray says that he is willing to fight
Henry. Bullingbrook says that Richard murdered Duke of Gloucester and the situation is dire and Mowbray
confirms he was plotting the death of the monarchy. Mowbray and Bullingbrook go back and forth, arguing, whilst
Richard tries to calm them by telling them not to fight and resolve the issue with words. Richard gives in and says
that there will be a battle on 17th September.
Key Quotes:
- High stomach’d are they both and full of ire/ In rage deaf as the sea, hasty as ire.
- First, heaven be the record to my speech. / In the devotion of a subject’s love […]/ Come I appellant to this
princely presence
- What my tongue speaks my right drawn sword must prove
- Setting aside his high blood’s royalty. / And let him be no kinsman to my liege
- Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps, / Or any other ground inhabitable/ Where ever Englishman durst set
his foot.
- That Mowbray hath reciev’d eight thousand nobles/ In name of lendings for your highness’ soldiers
- Upon his bad life to make all this good, / That he did plot the Duke of Gloucester’s death.
- Like sacrificing Abel’s cries
- Wrath-kindl’d gentlemen, be rul’d by me. / Let’s purge this choler without letting blood.
- Pierc’d to the soul with slander’s venom’d spear
- Rage must be withstood. / Give me his gage. Lions make leopards tame.
- We were not born to sue, but to command.
- At Coventry upon Saint Lambert’s Day. / There shall your swords and lances arbitrate/ The swelling
difference of your settled hate
Analysis of scene (theme/character):
• Richard II- he is the tragic hero, and he is introduced through a trial. He is having to be the judge of whether
the conflict between his cousin and the Duke of Norfolk. Whilst he should be able to control the situation
and demand that people follow his command, he seems to undermine his own power by only simply
suggesting that the people arguing should stop. In a way, he is within himself most of the scene, not giving
any speeches to be able to highlight that he has the authority in the room.
• Religion- Shakespeare uses religion in this scene, as was seen in most of his plays. The audience would
have been mainly Christian, following and believing the King has the ‘Divine Right’, worshipping him like he
is God. Bullingbrook also mentions about ‘Abel’s cries’- the first person in the Bible to be murdered;
perhaps this is used so that the issue is highlighted further and makes the audience want to align with
Bullingbrook’s ideas as we are also witnessing the two men’s testimonies.
• Mowbray- He is the man who is being accused of treason by Richard’s cousin- Bullingbrook. He is accused
of stealing and plotting to murder someone in the monarchy (which he does admit to doing so). He tends to
talk with more rhyming couplets, his speech is structured and orderly unlike Bullingbrook who only uses a
rhyming couplet at t the end of his speech. Perhaps this is a way for Shakespeare to separate the two men
and make sure that Mowbray seems the most rational and collected in the situation.
Tragic conventions: New concepts/ideas:
- Tragic hero- Richard - Rhetoric (Noun)- The art of persuasive writing or speaking.
- Tragic setting- Windsor Henry and Thomas use a lot of rhetoric and figurative
Castle language to be able to make themselves appear more
persuasive to both Richard and the audience.
- Catastrophe- the conflict
- Ignoble (Adjective)- Not noble. Richard is presented as an
between Bullingbrook and Ignoble character in this scene as he is unable to show any
Mowbray cannot be resolved true authority in the situation.
by Richard.
, Characters:
John of Gaunt Act I, Scene ii
Duchess of Summary:
Gloucester John of Gaunt says that he cannot not exact revenge on Richard for the Duke of
Gloucester’s death due to divine right, but the Duchess of Gloucester insistently
Location: pleads for her brother-in-law to avenge his brother. The Duchess of Gloucester
begins to use rhetoric to get Gaunt to follow in pursuit of revenge but Gaunt still
John of refuses. The Duchess says that she wants Mowbray to be killed by Gaunt’s son,
Bolingbroke and she wants Gaunt to pass her wishes to his brother, the Duke of
Gaunt’s
York, and she also confuses herself with whether York should come over to her
house house as she is lonely.
Key Quotes:
- Alas, the part I had in Woodstock’s blood/ Doth more solicit me than your exclaims/ To
stir against the butcher of his life
- Hath love in thy old blood no living fire?
- One flourishing branch of his most royal root
- Is hack’d down, and his summer leaves all faded
- Let heaven revenge, for I may never lift/An angry arm against His minister
- Grief boundeth where it falls/ Not with the empty hollowness, but weight
Analysis of scene (theme/character):
- Imagery of blood: this has a dual meaning with the Duchess of Gloucester’s speech. In
one way, blood means that the blood that is shed within the body in battle and when
the Duke of Gloucester was killed. But it also refers to the royal blood that Gaunt
possesses as being Edward’s son and related to Richard.
- Nature: The Duchess of Gloucester begins to talk about how Edward has 7 sons, and
they were like a tree. This could refer to the hereditary family tree that we see a lot to
represent families.
- Gaunt: he is staying loyal to Richard despite having the knowledge that he has killed
his brother. This is due to the Divine Right which the older generation seems to believe
more strongly than the younger one.
Tragic conventions: New concepts/ideas:
- Arousal of pity and fear: we pity the Duchess of - Volatile (Adjective)- Unstable
Gloucester as she is truly affected by her husband’s
murder as she weeps, and her speech carries a
o Volatility= noun
solemn tone to it. Also, we fear for Gaunt as there is - Clipped (speech) (Adjective)-
some hint that he could be next to be murdered. Short sounds, few words and
- Foreshadowing: Gaunt talks about raining down “hot brief.
vengeance” which could foreshadow Richard’s tragic
fall.
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