SOURCE: Moore, Ella Adams. “Moral Proportion and Fatalism in Shakespeare: King John, and Conclusion.” Poet Lore 8 (1896): 139-45.

In the following essay, Moore emphasizes the tragic quality of Shakespeare's King John as a victim of his own ungovernable passions.

Shakespeare has, in this drama, departed from history in many particulars. This is shown in the character of King John himself. In history, John's career throughout is marked by wanton cruelty, utter shamelessness of life, treachery, and tyranny. “‘Foul as it is, hell itself is defiled by the fouler presence of John.’ The terrible verdict of his contemporaries has passed into the sober judgment of history.”¹ But of this John we see little in the early pages of the play. Indeed, he seems almost heroic as he leads the hosts of united England against a foreign foe,—the “thunders of his cannon” heard ere the messenger “can report” his coming...