“I Play the Devil.” Theodicy and Kingship in Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Richard the Third

The villainy of a despot and William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Richard the Third will forever mark the English literary imagination. Through examining the nexus of the performative power of kingship and its relationship to Elizabethan moral and political order, the issue of theodicy naturally arises as it relates to English history. In joining history to theodicy, Shakespeare questions English ideas of personhood and the performative nature of political identity