Harry Berger, Jr., University of California, Santa Cruz

In Richard II, Thomas Mowbray, the Duke of Norfolk, having been accused of grievous crimes and challenged to judicial combat by Henry Bolingbroke, addresses the following piece of ceremonial bluster to the throne:

However God or Fortune cast my lot,
 There lives or dies true to King Richard's throne,
 A loyal, just, and upright gentleman.
 Never did captive with a freer heart
 Cast off his chains of bondage and embrace
 His golden uncontroll'd enfranchisement,
 More than my dancing soul doth celebrate
 This feast of battle with mine adversary.
 Most mighty liege, and my companion peers,
 Take from my mouth the wish of happy years;
 As gentle and as jocund as to jest
 Go I to fight: truth hath a quiet breast.

(1.3.85-96)

Such ritual self-representation has the obvious purpose of turning the speaker as completely as possible into a conventional...