How Richard II drew on Genesis
A documented line of influence: William Shakespeare demonstrably engaged Moses’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
Genesis
Moses · c. 550 BCE
BibleThe influenced
Richard II
William Shakespeare · c. 1595
ShakespeareRelevance
6/10
On Richard II’s page
- The garden of England in Richard II is Eden — and Richard's reign is the Fall that wrecks it
- The gardener becomes 'old Adam's likeness'; the queen asks 'what serpent hath suggested thee / To make a second fall of cursed man?' — Shakespeare is reading Richard's deposition straight through Genesis 3
- Knowing the Eden story first lets you hear why Gaunt's 'demi-paradise' lament cuts so deep
On Genesis’s page
- The Fall is the template Shakespeare reaches for when England loses its king
- Richard II casts the realm as 'this other Eden, demi-paradise' (Gaunt, 2.1), then watches it degrade — the garden scene (3.4) names Adam, Eve, and the serpent outright to frame Richard's deposition as 'a second fall of cursed man'
- Even the thorns and thistles of Genesis 3:18 surface, turning a king's mismanaged kingdom into a fallen garden