SOURCE: Kelly, Michael F. “The Function of York in Richard II.” Southern Humanities Review VI, no. 3 (summer 1972): 257-67.

In the following essay, Kelly studies the crucial role York plays in the dramatic and thematic developments of Richard II. Kelly contends that York's shift in attitude and loyalty, from Richard to Bolingbroke, encourages a parallel response in the audience.

The thematic and dramatic development of Richard II depends on the pivotal role played by the Duke of York. While he guides audience response, structurally he is also a pivot upon which the transfer of power turns, and thematically he appears for a time to be a spokesman for the play's political lesson. Many scholars who have written on Richard II have been able to dispose of him with a sentence or two, usually to the effect that York is a pitiable old man who is simply caught in the...