SOURCE: Traister, Barbara H. “The King's One Body: Unceremonial Kingship in King John.” In King John: New Perspectives, edited by Deborah T. Curren-Aquino, pp. 91-8. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1989.

In the following essay, Traister investigates the concept of ceremony in King John, and evaluates the portrayal of John as a king without recourse to ceremony or access to the power of “majesty.”

Compared to Shakespeare's history plays that precede it, King John is a play of reductions. Its cast of named characters is considerably smaller than those of the earlier plays. It has no fully staged battle scenes, despite the ongoing war between France and England. Many of its scenes and lines are devoted to private moments in its characters' lives. The panoply and ceremony that marked the first tetralogy have largely vanished. The crown itself has lost power as a symbol of majesty. The play presents...