Shakespeare’s Self-Repetitions and King John

Summary

Shakespeare's habit of recycling his favourite dramatic devices is generally recognized. Just about every component part of a play might be repeated - characters, episodes, 'scenic form', stage actions, thematic preoccupations, words and phrases, image clusters, and so on. How could it be otherwise? We are aware of similar self-repetition in other writers, and in composers, painters, choreographers, and think nothing of it. I want to suggest that such selfrepetitions, when of sufficient quality and quantity, can serve as an authorial finger-print, with interesting applications in other fields.

For reasons that will soon be obvious, I shall focus on self-repetitions in King John. All are found in plays that preceded King John and most of them in others that came later, though I am chiefly concerned with those that preceded. King John, in short, is never the beginning of a series of self-repetitions in the list that follows, and usually is not the end.

(1) The most striking series involves character stereotypes. For example, scolding, aggressive and bitter women revile their enemies and/or utter long-winded lamentations (Joan of Arc in 1 Henry VI; Duchess of Gloucester, Queen Elizabeth, Duchess of York in 2 and 3 Henry VI, Richard III: compare Queen Eleanor and Constance in King John). This stereotype survives, in modified form, in Lady Macbeth, Cleopatra, Volumnia, Paulina. Prattling, pathetic boys are threatened with death (Rutland in 3 Henry VI; the princes killed in the Tower, Richard III; Maduff's son, Macbeth: compare Arthur).