SOURCE: “The Historiographic Methodology of King John,” in King John: New Perspectives, edited by Deborah T. Curren-Aquino, Associated University Presses, 1989, pp. 29-40.

In the following essay, Robinson considers the ways in which Shakespeare satirizes the moral interpretation of past events.

One of the distinctive stylistic features of the Shakespearean history play is the artful recreation of history as past, present, and future. Calling attention to the “network of references” to both the past and the future in these plays, Wolfgang Clemen observes that “Shakespeare not only handled episodes from the historical past, but he translated into drama elements inherent in history itself. For history demonstrates how the past grows into the present and leads on to the future.”¹ In the history plays these retrospective and prospective passages not only reflect Shakespeare's consciousness of the historical process but serve as a commentary on the historiographic process. While recall imitates...