SOURCE: Vaughan, Virginia Mason. “Between Tetralogies: King John as Transition.” Shakespeare Quarterly 35, no. 4 (winter 1984): 402-20.

In the following essay, Vaughan maintains that King John operates as a bridge between the two historical tetralogies, contending that the play “demonstrates Shakespeare's experimentation with more sophisticated dramaturgical techniques to convey political complexities, techniques he perfected in the Henriad.”

Modern scholars, not surprisingly, are fascinated by Shakespeare's second tetralogy.¹ Separately the plays offer wide variety—from Richard II's formal deposition, to Falstaff's witty fabrications, to Henry V's patriotic rhetoric. Together they suggest Shakespeare's conceptualization of the political process. For some time now we have perceived threads binding all four plays into a unity so carefully crafted that we call it “the Henriad” and grant it epic qualities that we seldom attribute to other Shakespearean dramas.² The first tetralogy has also gained critical recognition of late, partly as a reaction to the Royal...