For the first time, Shakespeare creates a compelling historical protagonist who speaks naturally in a poetic voice that is distinctively his own. In his earlier works involving kings and emperors, Shakespeare imitated Marlowe&#39;s &quot;mighty line&quot; with some--if not complete--success (Richard III was inherently Marlovian, which helped) but in Richard II he at last found a king--a weak man but a considerable poet, with an eye for detail--whom he could animate from the inside, a king more comfortable with the rhetoric of royal pageantry than with the governing his country.<br /><br />Like Hamlet, Richard and his language dominate the play which he inhabits, and the downside to this is that the play inevitably loses a little of its light and beauty whenever he is not on the stage.