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The Man Shakespeare by Frank Harris
page 79 of 447 (17%)
his dethronement and murder.

The curious thing is that while Shakespeare is depicting Richard's
heartlessness, he does his work badly; the traits, as I have shown, are
crudely extravagant and even contradictory; but when he paints Richard's
gentleness and amiability, he works like a master, every touch is
infallible: he is painting himself.

It was natural for Shakespeare to sympathize deeply with Richard; he was
still young when he wrote the play, young enough to remember vividly how
he himself had been led astray by loose companions, and this formed a
bond between them. At this time of his life this was Shakespeare's
favourite subject: he treated it again in "Henry IV.," which is at once
the epilogue to "Richard II." and a companion picture to it; for the
theme of both plays is the same--youth yielding to unworthy
companions--though the treatment in the earlier play is incomparably
feebler than it became in "King Henry IV." Bushy, Bagot, and Green, the
favourites of Richard, are not painted as Shakespeare afterwards painted
Falstaff and his followers. But partly because he had not yet attained
to such objective treatment of character, Shakespeare identified himself
peculiarly with Richard; and his painting of Richard is more intimate,
more subtle, more self-revealing and pathetic than anything in "Henry
IV."

As I have already said, from the time when Richard appoints York as
Regent, and leaves England, Shakespeare begins to think of himself as
Richard, and from this moment to the end no one can help sympathizing
with the unhappy King. At this point, too, the character-drawing
becomes, of a sudden, excellent. When Richard lands in England, he is
given speech after speech, and all he says and does afterwards throws
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