SOURCE: Meron, Theodor. “War and Peace.” In Bloody Constraint: War and Chivalry in Shakespeare, pp. 16-46. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
In the following essay, Meron compares Shakespeare's treatment of war to medieval and Renaissance legal, religious, and chivalric doctrines of “just war.” Focusing on the English histories and Troilus and Cressida, the critic contends that characters in these plays articulate a message that is essentially pacifist.
