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Plays about kings

  • MacbethMacbeth is the shortest tragedy William Shakespeare wrote, more than a thousand lines shorter than Othello and King Lear.
  • Henry IV, Part 1Henry IV, Part 1 opens with a king haunted by the throne he stole. Written by William Shakespeare, probably in the mid-1590s and first published in quarto in…
  • Henry IV, Part 2Henry IV, Part 2 opens not with a king or a hero, but with a personified figure called Rumour, a character who sets the tone for a play built on deception…
  • The Winter's TaleThe play The Winter's Tale draws its main plot from Robert Greene's pastoral romance Pandosto, published in 1588. Shakespeare made uncharacteristically…
  • Richard III (play)Richard III opens with a man addressing you directly, telling you exactly who he is and what he plans to do. "I am determined to prove a villain," says the…
  • Henry V (play)Henry V, Shakespeare's history play believed to have been written circa 1599, opens with an apology. A lone figure steps forward on the stage and asks the…
  • Richard II (play)Richard II, Shakespeare's play about the last two years of a king's life, opens with a moment of supreme royal authority that contains within it the seeds of…
  • King LearKing Lear asks a question that has unsettled audiences for four centuries: what happens when a man with absolute power demands to be loved?
  • A Midsummer Night's DreamA Midsummer Night's Dream opens in Athens, four days before a wedding, with a father dragging his daughter before a duke and invoking a law that would see…
  • CymbelineWilliam Shakespeare set his play Cymbeline in ancient Britain, drawing the name of its king from Cunobeline, a real historical figure mentioned by Suetonius…
  • Henry VI, Part 1Henry VI, Part 1 opens at a funeral. Henry V, conqueror of France and one of England's most celebrated kings, has died unexpectedly in his prime, leaving…
  • Henry VIII (play)Scholars examining the text of Henry VIII found that individual scenes bore the distinct fingerprints of two different writers.
  • Oedipus RexOedipus Rex opens with a city dying. Thebes is consumed by plague, and its king stands before his people vowing to hunt down the murderer responsible.
  • The BacchaeThe Bacchae ends with a mother cradling what she believes is the head of a mountain lion, only to realize it belongs to her own son.