SOURCE: Boklund, Gunnar. “The Troublesome Ending of King John.” Studia Neophilologica 40, no. 1 (1968): 175-84.

In the following essay, Boklund observes the elusiveness of a “happy ending” in King John and notes that the play's ambiguous conclusion dramatizes the uneasy compromise between Christian moral principle and corrupted political self-interest.

To judge from the critical attention that has been devoted to King John since the publication of Tillyard's and Lily B. Campbell's books on Shakespeare's history plays, it is now taken much more seriously than previously, although nothing like critical unanimity about it has so far been reached. Three of the writers who hold very high opinions of King John interpret the emphasis of the play quite differently: Adrien Bonjour, being primarily concerned with dramatic structure, sees the significant pattern in the balance between John's disintegration and the Bastard's assumption of responsibility, James L. Calderwood views the action in terms of...