SOURCE: Riddell, James A. “The Admirable Character of York.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 21, no. 4 (winter 1979): 492-502.

In the following essay, Riddell defends the character of York against negative criticism, and asserts that York exemplifies the Christian ideal of magnanimity.

Coleridge's high opinion of the character of York in Richard II has been shared by few critics in the past century. Although it is unlikely that anyone today would be as shrill (but at the same time obsequious) in disagreeing with Coleridge as Swinburne finally was, the essense of his view persists today. The figure of York, said Swinburne, “is an incomparable, an incredible, an unintelligible and a monstrous nullity. Coleridge's attempt to justify the ways of York to man—to any man of common sense and common sentiment—is as amusing in Coleridge as it would be amazing in any other and therefore lesser commentator.”¹ It...