Discusses William Charles Macready’s early to mid-19th-century productions of Richard II in the UK. Touches on Ross as omitted from a specific playbill, and thus possibly from the adaptation.
Details Edwin Booth’s late-19th-century productions in the US for Augustin Daly. Touches on a controversy over who actually played Ross, in light of conflicting evidence in the prompt book and the playbill.
Deborah Warner’s 1997 adaptation for BBC2. Lists casting and doubling for Ross. Mentions the different possible interpretations of the three conspirators.
Details Northumberland's character in Shakespeare versus Holinshed. Can provide context for a discussion of the possible directorial or acting choices possible for the three conspirators. And provides a straightforward summary of the conspirators' conversation, including Ross' role in it.
Thirty pages discussing the Claremont Shakespeare Clinic's stylometric testing of "A Funeral Elegy" and their inexplicable feud with Prof. Donald Foster. Touches Ross in that Bolingbroke's greeting to Ross in 2.3.65(ish) may be a lone example of Shakespeare using "thank" rather than "thanks" as a noun to express gratitude (p.195). Their detailed results may have more relevant details.
Argues that the murder of Thomas of Woodstock, and hence Woodstock, underpins every part of the plot for the first third of Richard II, and thus again that Shakespeare depended on his audience's familiarity with the older play. Discusses whether Shakespeare intends Richard II to be personally culpable for Gloucester's death, and Bolingbroke's true motivations for returning in rebellion. Mentions Ross mainly as one present at John of Gaunt's deathbed, and thus the quarrel scene between him and the king. But makes a point regarding the significance of Richard's confiscation of Gaunt's properties, which under feudal law makes Gaunt and Bolingbroke an "un-person", and York, Northumberland, Ross, and Willoughby's understanding of this significance immediately prior to the conspirators conversation.
Argues that Shakespeare does not depict Bushy, Bagot, and Green as the parasitic and self-interested sycophants they are accused as being by Gaunt, Bolingbroke, Northumberland, and the Gardener. Unlike in Hall and Holinshed, Shakespeare leaves the three of them essentially blank, or at most as reflections, rather than visibly influencing the king. This has the effect of making Richard more culpable for his own failings, and the Bolingbroke faction more duplicitous in their accusations: framing the blame as resting with Bushy, Bagot, and Green is merely a device to avoid having to admit to rebelling against a legitimate king, but their—Bolingbroke's in particular—actions demonstrate that their aim is, hypocritically, to seize the throne. Touches on Ross only in so far as it discusses his and Willoughby's separation from the court as an instance of a theme of separation and dissolution of allies and power around the king, and an agglomeration of the same around Bolingbroke.
Argues that the history plays are really fiscal tragedies: the sovreign's sovreignity is dependent on his ability to levy taxes, but taxation foments discontent and gives rise to rebellions small and great. Glimp exemplifies the underlying financial motives with Ross' "The commons hath he pilled with grievous taxes, And quite lost their hearts. The nobles he hath fined For ancient quarrels, and quite lost their hearts."
Argues that the early tragedies, including the chronicle histories, are rightly «rhetorical tragedies»; where complicated high-rhetoric language is used to express grief or anger. As contrasted with Ryland’s view that «The more intense the emotion, the more the poet will abhor ornament: he will counterfeit direct speech.» Argues tha Ross, Willoughby, and Northumberland—and their conversation—fill the role of a Senecan Chorus, and compares it to the Gardeners scene.
Responds to French (1971). Argues that Richard II's pre-history—going back to Richard II's early accession to the throne, his uncles' and the Lords Appellant interference in his early reign, through the Wonderful Parliament, Merciless Parliament, and Revenge Parliament, including the murder, on Mowbray's watch, of Thomas of Woodstock—is the backdrop to the plot; but that Shakespeare deliberately leaves these things unaddressed and obscure for dramatic reasons. Irish points out Holinshed as the source for the complaints of tyranny that Northumberland, Ross, and Willoughby enumerate, and draws the connection to the Lords Appellant's uprising and Woodstock. The nobles fined for ancient quarrells are in fact nobles fined for having supported Gloucester (Woodstock), Arundell, and Warwick against Richard. That Richard has "basely yielded upon compromise / That which his ancestors achieved with blows" is the charge, according to Holinshed, that Woodstock made to Richard in 1597—referring to Richard's plan to cede Brest to the French—leading up this arrest, murder, and the Revenge Parliament.
Long rambling argument that hospitality and the hospitality laws of the 1590s is a useful critical lens for Richard II. Gaunt, Bolingbroke, the Duchess of Gloucester, and even York's actions are all explainable by reference to nostalgia for a mediaeval past where hospitality was an ingrained part of the social fabric; and the desire to reclaim that state. Richard, as a rapacious tyrant, that not only does not exhibit hospitality, even takes away the other character's ability to provide hospitality through his confiscation of Bolingbroke's inheritance from Gaunt, and the Duchess of Gloucester's from Thomas of Woodstock. Mentions Ross only in passing, and as an adjunct to Northumberland in listing Richard's sins.
Examines the development, under the Tudors, of "Treason by Words" as a crime, and its effects on the conception of treason. Richard's false accusations of treason, motivated by a desire for personal enrichment, becomes the reason for others' treason: banishing Bolingbroke turns Gaunt againt him; confiscating Gaunt's properties induces York to think of treason, and Northumberland, Ross, and Willoughby to rebel. Richard claims the devine right of kings, while the rebels make the argument previously made in the Declaration of 1308: even the king's person owes allegiance to the institution of the Crown, and the oath he swears on accession binds him to rule by law rather than selfish and capricious will. Has a slightly different perspective on Ross.
Argues that the "bold metaphor" in Richard II is the Book of Genesis: Richard's murder of Woodstock (by way of Mowbray) and Bolingbroke's of Richard (by way of Exeter), mirror the sins of Adam and Caine; and the imagery in Richard II of blood and chaos (the civil war to come), a badly tended garden (Richard's mismanagement of England), and generation and inheritance mirror God's curse upon man (original sin, Caine's immortality). Ross is mentioned only in passing, giving quotes from the conspiracy conversation as further fodder for Maveety's argument.
Rogers, Jami (2014). "Antony and Cleopatra performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company (Swan), and: Richard II performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RST), and: Thomas of Woodstock performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company (Barbican Theatre) (review)". Shakespeare Bulletin. 32 (2): 310–319. doi:10.1353/shb.2014.0020. ISSN1931-1427 – via Project MUSE. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |subscription= ignored (|url-access= suggested) (help)
Sanchez, Melissa E. (2012). "Bodies that Matter in Richard II". In Lopez, Jeremy (ed.). Richard II: New Critical Essays. Shakespeare Criticism. Vol. 25. London: Routledge. pp. 95–116. ISBN978-0-203-13366-8.
