SOURCE: Knights, L. C. “Richard III.” In William Shakespeare: The Histories, pp. 16-26. London: Longmans Green & Co., 1962.

In the following essay, Knights examines the structure and method of characterization of Richard III, considering the drama as more than simply a political morality play.

To call Shakespeare's Histories ‘political’ plays is simply one way of indicating that they deal with such matters as the nature of power—and the conflict of powers—within a constituted society, and with the relation of political exigencies to the personal life of those caught up in them. In other words, they belong not with the limited class of Elizabethan chronicle plays, but with that extensive range of world literature that includes Antigone, Athalie, The Possessed and Under Western Eyes. To say this is not of course to offer a definition: it merely suggests the nature of the interest that we bring to bear...