OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE WITH ANNOTATIONS AND A GENERAL INTRODUCTION BY SIDNEY LEE VOLUME XXI KING RICHARD II WITH A SPECIAL INTRODUCTION BY AND AN ORIGINAL FRONTISPIECE BY PAUL WOODROFFE NEW YORK GEORGE D. SPROUL Copyright, 1907 BY THE UNIVERSITY PRESS Entered at Stationers' Hall, London THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. INTRODUCTION T HE literary interest of this play, separated as it can be according to the wise ordinance of this edition from non-literary considerations, may be fairly considered from three points of view,-two of them necessary and proper, the third accidental, after a fashion, but almost appertaining to that class of accident which logicians call inseparable. Placing this between the other two, their order will be: First, the position, according to literary considerations only, of the play in Shakespeare's work; secondly, its relation to Marlowe's “Edward II"; thirdly, its intrinsic and absolute value for us. All three, as in all such cases, have to do with each other; but in this order of treatment we can subsume, and if necessary repeat, the results of the earlier examinations in the later. |