Richard II... oh my History

Sat down to think about Shakespeare's Histories. Maybe you have done the same thing recently. I've read Julius Caesar and even played a part in it when I was in 8th grade, but other than that I do not have too much experience in the genre. My first reaction was a list of pessimistic questions, unfortunately:

"Why do histories, Shakespeare? Doesn't seem like a traditional genre for theatre."
"Even if you had a good reason, why write so many?"
"What kind of reaction were you trying to get out of the people?"


C'mon Erik, I thought. This is Shakespeare. There has to be a reason why Shakespeare has chosen the medium of history to present a play. Maybe it is that he finds something sacred about remembering and appreciating the past, or maybe he has a strange fascination with Kings (ever notice how there always seems to be one in every play?). Perhaps there was a demand for it, and he found a way to work it in his own style. I want to find out what motive he had. It must have been powerful, because Richard II is considered as only a part of the larger work of one History-- along with Henry IV part 1, Henry IV part 2, and Henry V. Hmm.

My second reaction, looking at the text, is wondering about why he chose to write this play in nearly all  verse, as opposed to other plays. Would this result in more or less problems for translation of Shakespeare into other languages?

So, I decided to do a little research. It turns out that La Universidad de Alicante, Spain, has a department of English Philology that has compiled over 500 translations of Shakespeare into Spanish from the late 1700s until today. Richard II has been translated significantly at least 7 times since 1870. How cool would it be to do a comparative analysis of the 7 translations (the last one ending in 1998) to determine how the Spanish language itself has evolved in the last century? So many questions...