SOURCE: “Renaissance Emblems of Death and Shakespeare's King John,” in English Studies, Vol. 79, No. 5, September, 1998, pp. 425-29.

In the essay below, MacKenzie examines the imagery of regeneration in King John, arguing that Shakespeare emphasizes the importance of death, rather than life, in the play.

The fourth print in Hans Holbein's Icones Historiarvm Veteris Testamenti reveals Adam in a postlapsarian world. He tills the soil, assisted and shadowed by a skeletal Dance of Death figure. It is a vision of toil and hardship, and the 1547 verse accompaniment to the Lyons edition emphasises the consequences of Adam's transgression.

En grand labeur, & sueur de son corps Le pere Adam a sa uie gaignee, Heue tandis en doloreux effortz Subiecte a l’Homme enfante sa lignee.(1) 

The reference is to Genesis 3:17-19. In eating the fruit of the forbidden tree, Adam has incurred the doom of mortality. No longer undying and happy...