"Flattery, Hypocrisy and Identity in Thomas of Woodstock"

The paper deals with the treatment of hypocrisy in the anonymous early modern text, often included in the Shakespeare apocrypha, "Thomas of Woodstock", also known as "King Richard II part 1". The text displays complex layers of hypocrisy as theatricality in the behaviour of a set of characters who parade themselves in outward display of false loyalty towards the King Richard II. The display of falseness and the double standards of behaviour between public display of bounty, of virtue, and the actual political cunning and imposture of the Court stand as strongly critical of the true nature of power as opposed to its public appearance. As Corbin and Sedge state in the Introduction to the Revels Plays edition, “the play as a whole allows its audience to look beneath the façade of ‘establishment’ ceremony and public relations iconography to examine the naked ambition and jockeying of power and influence which characterize the realpolitik and falsehood of stagecraft” (2002, pp. 36-7).