Summary and Critical Commentary

Abstract

The earliest printed editions of Richard II regularly use the spelling Bullingbrook or Bullingbrooke, which many modern editions change to Bolingbroke: and they frequently use the spelling Herford instead of Hereford. I shall use the forms Bolingbroke and Hereford, since these are the ones you are most likely to meet in modern editions and in critical works. (Notice however the rhyme ‘look/Bolingbroke’ at III.iv.98-9.) Line-references are from Richard II, edited by Richard Adams (Macmillan Education, 1975), in the Macmillan Shakespeare series. Since, however, the play is entirely in verse, line-references vary very little from one modern edition to another. For other Shakespeare plays, line-references are taken from The Riverside Shakespeare, edited by G. Blakemore Evans (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1974).