SOURCE: “King John: ‘Perfect Richard’ versus ‘This Old World,’” in These Valiant Dead: Renewing the Past in Shakespeare's Histories, University of Iowa Press, 1991, pp. 46-68.

In the following excerpt, Jones considers Faulconbridge as an extension of Richard I, arguing that Shakespeare raises doubts about the validity of a direct link between past and present.

King John, that “singular” play among Shakespeare's histories of the nineties, is commonly seen to be transitional between the two tetralogies from which its narrative stands chronologically apart. Its departure from the earlier series and anticipation of the second one is usually perceived in the tough-minded realism of its dramatized political dilemmas.¹ And in no respect can both its transitional and its singular status be seen more distinctly than in the way that realism is enforced through this play's recollection and renewal of the “valiant dead.” According to William Matchett, “the memory of Coeur-de-lion...