Richard III

This review will focus mainly on the play itself, but firstly I will make a brief comment about this particular edition. These Oxford editions of the Shakespeare plays for me have one bad point and one good point. On the negative side, I consider the introductions to be over-academic for the general reader. On the positive side, the explanatory notes are generally good and are placed at the foot of each page for easy reference. The five stars I have given are for Shakespeare: I would give Oxford four.

Richard III is a long play, and perhaps a little drawn out in places. Nevertheless it is one of my favourite Shakespeares. There are some brilliant scenes, such as the opening monologue; the scene where Richard woos Anne; the Council show more Meeting where Richard turns on Hastings; and the scene where Clarence describes his dream and is then murdered.

The scene with Clarence's dream also contains one of my favourite pieces of Shakespeare's poetry, the passage which starts: "O Lord, methought what pain it was to drown..."

There has been a lot of analysis of the character of Richard. He clearly represents a typical feudal gangster-lord. Some also see him as personifying the ruthlessly individualistic rising bourgeoisie of Shakespeare's time. Others have pointed to the similarities between Richard and the character of "Vice" in the medieval morality plays.

The play is also often said to bring out the conflict between fate and determinism on the one hand, and free will and choice on the other. For example, when Richard says, "I am determinèd to prove a villain", he seems to be asserting his individual will. But "determined" can also mean "fated".

But leaving the analysis aside, this is an enjoyable play. It is a history/tragedy, but it is done with humour. Richard is amusing as well as evil. We are almost made to admire him. (The late medieval "Vice" character was also apparently often portrayed with humour.) I agree with what one Shakespeare expert (J.D. Wilson) once wrote: "Only by realising that Shakespeare expects us to at once enjoy and detest the monstrous Richard can we fully appreciate the play..."

Incidentally, this is why I can't go along with the idea of portraying Richard as a 1930s-style fascist (as has been done in recent years). Someone murdering their way to the top can be done with humour. Nazi genocide can NOT.

Richard is ruthless and amusing while he is on the rise. Once in power he is overcome by fear, mistrust and guilt. But he bounces back to a brave end.

I'll conclude with a point about the history that the play is based on. The complaints by fans of the real Richard III, that Shakespeare paints an unfair picture of Richard, don't hold water as far as I'm concerned. Firstly, we're talking about a play here, not history. Secondly, even if there is an element of Tudor propaganda in the play, the real Richard probably did kill the princes in the Tower. And thirdly, in any case, there was no such thing as a "good" medieval monarch! show less

26. Richard III by William Shakespeare
Originally Performed: 1592
format: 255-pages Signet Classic
acquired: May 11
read: May 22 – June 22
time reading: 10:12, 2.4 mpp
rating: 5
locations: 1480’s England
about the author: April 23, 1564 – April 23, 1616

Editing
[[Mark Eccles]] – editor – 1965, 1988, 1998
[[Sylvan Barnet]] – Series Editor – 1965, 1988, 1998
Sources
[[Sir Thomas More]] – from [The History of King Richard the Third] (written 1513-14, published 1557)
[[Raphael Holinshed]] – from [Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland], second edition (1587)
Commentaries
[[Charles Lamb]]
– Letter to Robert Lloyd (1801?)
– from an essay called Cooke’s Richard the Third (1802?)
– from On the Tragedies of Shakespeare, show more Considered with Reference to Their Fitness for Stage Representation (1811)
[[A. P. Rossiter]] – Angel with Horns: The Unity of Richard III (1961)
[[Robert Ornstein]] – Richard III - from [A Kingdom for the Stage: The Achievement of Shakespeare’s History Plays] (1972)
[[Coppélia Kahn]] – “Myself Alone”, Richard III and the Dissolution of Masculine Identity – from [Man’s Estate: Masculine Identity in Shakespeare] (1981)
[[Mark Eccles]] – Richard III on Stage and Screen

One of the great joys of casually reading through Shakespeare is having a personal experience of discovery like this play was. With one of the best openings, maybe the best opening of his plays, and one of his best written monologues, Richard III rants to us, privately exposing his demons and intelligence, and laying out his ruthless practical but flawed mindset. He doesn't stop there, meeting other characters, wooing (successfully!!) the widow of prince whose murder he himself took a hand in. And between each scene, alone on the stage, he has a wry comment for us alone. I wrote on Litsy, "Our murdering villain confides in us, opening his empty heart, generating a real stage-audience bond. Act I is riveting and funny and wonderful and this is easily one of my favorites from our #shakespearereadalong".

Causally stumbled across sources insist this was breakthrough play for Shakespeare, and it just makes so much sense. Three entertaining, but imperfect and plot-hobbled histories of Henry VI predate this. Plays that can be appreciated. But this opening is a wow, really on a different level. Maybe too powerful, as Richard III, loser to Tudor founder Henry VII at Bosworth Field in 1485, murderer of Edward VI's young sons and heirs (and another brother's younger children), is forever villainized by the impression left by this play. The real Richard was a sharp character, committed to England, undermined by ex-queen Margaret's family (key members of whom he also murdered), and eventually entangled in a losing power struggle. He was a villainized loser, his grave lost until it was found under a parking lot in 2012.

This dark play is designed to be fun on the stage. A well done Richard III should take over the show and, quite frankly, be funny. He's just so much more clever than everyone else. And he is always acting, except when confiding to us, and for a scrooge-like dream sequence with a collection of entertaining ghosts. It's a performance of a performance, transparent only to us. Lost in his shadow are some terrific female roles, his own mother lamenting his character, the queen, once Lady Gray, who is his sister-in-law, and the ex-queen, widow of Henry VI, Margaret, who does her own bit of scene stealing (and yet commonly gets edited out.) This is also one of Shakespeare's longest plays. Editors must work with it for any performance. But there aren't really any unnecessary parts. Remove some lines, and part of the impact is missing.

As I said on Litsy, easily one of my favorite Shakespeare plays, and certainly my favorite of the English histories.

2021
https://www.librarything.com/topic/330945#7546376 show less

As much as I’m a fan of historical fiction, Shakespeare’s interpretations seem to consistently do nothing but either piss me off or mildly bore me - Richard III being the former, as this story is nothing if not melodramatic. Overly so in a lot of ways, since Richard often comes off as an extreme case of a superficial villain what with his blatant asides about killing off literally everyone who doesn’t do what he wants (former allies are not excepted from this rule). Use, abuse, and then dispose seems to be his backing motto, and Shakespeare gives very little leeway from this theme in his almost-contemporary historical commentary. Obviously, those of us with some historical perspective (and who weren’t writing for the direct show more descendents of the Tudors who defeated Richard III at the finale of the Wars of the Roses) understand that the character of Richard of York is much more complex than he was portrayed by Shakespeare and other contemporaries, but this play still gives us an excellent example of just how much political propaganda was alive and well long before the modern day. show less

Don't be put off by this being one of the "supposedly-dull" Histories. This is the story of the archetypal waxed-moustache-twiddling evil villain, except that instead of tying girls to railway tracks, he butchers his way through half of his own family to reach the throne of England. And the incredible thing is that you can't help feeling empathy with him. There's a feeling of collusion between the reader and the the protagonist, partly through the device of frequent asides to the audience - for instance he smooth-talks his victims into believing that their lives are safe, then turns to the audience and exclaims derisively how foolish they were to believe him. And peculiarly, the characters of the Queen Elizabeth, Queen Margaret and the show more Duchess of Gloucester who spend the whole play cursing Richard for the way he has slaughtered their husbands and children, they just come across as irritating nags, and you start wishing they'd shut up already, even if Richard has just ordered the two young children of Elizabeth to be secretly killed. It's not that the play is immoral, or condones ruthless violence, but it's a kind of Elizabethan version of CSI or The Wire (for the record - neither of which I've ever seen). We can't help being drawn in fascination to the corruption of it all, and every time Richard sinks lower, you put your head in your hands and say, "I can't believe he just did that" ... and then keep on reading. show less

After reading and watching this play, I have now “heard” it. What I noticed, in this version, was that the effect of hearing was to level the players. Richard III is usually regarded as having one interesting character and many boring ones, and so being dependent on a show-stopping performance by the lead to make a performance watchable. Here, the lead actor, David Troughton, is good as the king but not domineering. Instead of ruining the performance, though, his refusal to chew scenery allows the other actors to bring their characters to life. Especially memorable are rages of a furious, dying Edward IV at the backbiting court that failed to protect his brother from himself and the lesson Queen Margaret gives Queen Elizabeth in the show more art of cursing. I was also happy to find this production unabridged. show less

Settling back in my chair to think about what I’ve read . . .
Remember when, in Patton, George C. Scott exclaims, “Rommel, you magnificent bastard. I read your book!”?
It’s possible to imagine an unnamed candidate exclaiming in admiration after election to presidential office, “Shakespeare, you magnificent bastard. I did it like Richard III!” (Or possibly he’d say, “like Richard Three”).

What might I mean?

To begin with, Shakespeare has made this Richard III fellow so grotesquely grotesque that it’s hard to think how one might endure a play about him, and not a short play either. He hardly needed grotesqueness of body too. He is a pillar of grotesquerie. And it doesn’t help that he suffers from Asinine Distemper show more Syndrome.

<SPOILER NOTICE: The discussion that follows is partially a synopsis. Several events in the play are revealed.>

The action opens with Richard acquainting us with his newest plan: “I am determined to prove a villain.” In this he does not lie. It’s barely possible for his interest to be captured by any other ambition, whether he is capering in this play or in Shakespeare’s telling of the reign of King Henry VI. We immediately learn that he has laid plots to set his brother Clarence “in deadly hate” against his other brother who is, for the moment, king.

Well, who’d have guessed? Every reader of the Henry VI saga, I’d say. Facing the predictability of it all, one is tempted to cry, “A hearse, a hearse! What boredom, bring a hearse!”

Nonetheless, Richard surprises with how successfully he manipulates others to his ends when he is so minded. Having previously killed Lady Anne’s husband plus her father-in-law (Henry VI), he manufactures from these actions a romantic advantage.
What though I killed her husband and her father?
The readiest way to make the wench amends
Is to become her husband
It takes some convincing but somehow the noble “wench” softens toward his intent and becomes his wife.

Next an encounter with Margaret, Henry VI’s widow, who as a jewel of antagonistic behavior is almost a clone of Richard’s soul. Here Richard accomplishes something deft. While Margaret’s spite is obdurate—she resembles Richard greatly in capacity for distemper—Richard scores bonus points with the nobles witnessing their exchange. They go away impressed at his “virtuous and Christian-like” and prayerful manner. No matter that Richard has won their good opinion by feigning Christian conduct. Appositely, the Editor’s note here cites Milton’s Eikonoklastes: “The deepest policy of a tyrant hath ever been to counterfeit religious.” The reader can only shake his head.

Later, in a scene similar to the wooing of his by now deceased first wife, Richard, having killed Queen Elizabeth’s two young sons, bids her intercede to persuade her daughter to marry him. When she complains, saying her sons are “Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves,” he rebuts “Harp not on that string, madam; that is past.”

Swell guy. Still, the unapologetic Richard sways her. To her protest “Yet thou didst kill my children,” he replies:
But in your daughter’s womb I bury them:
Where in the nest of spicery, they will breed
Selves of themselves, to your recomfiture.
Crass modern translation: “Yeah, your sons are ****ing dead. You’ll feel better by setting it up so I can **** your daughter too.”

So Elizabeth agrees. Give her credit. Richard had to pursue his goal patiently for 174 lines (believe me, that’s a lot of lines) before she gave consent.

Just after Elizabeth leaves to bring Daughter the unexpected news, Richard brands her a “Relentless fool.” Nothing so arouses his contempt as giving in to what he wants. Nothing arouses his ire more than opposing what he wants. Richard, how in good conscience do you do the things you do? He kindly explains:
For conscience is a word that cowards use,
Devis’d at first to keep the strong in awe:
Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law.
One feels sure even Socrates would fail to convince him otherwise.

Settling back in my chair to think about what I’ve read . . .
Well, perhaps you now imagine an unnamed candidate too. And that’s why you should read Richard III. show less

An unambiguous hatchet job on the historical personage of King Richard III (rightly or wrongly), this is one of Shakespeare's straightest plays, with all the advantages and disadvantages that suggests.

For advantages, you could mention its leanness and simplicity: a 'star vehicle' for the Machiavellian villain Richard, around whom the play orbits, in which he offs all his rivals in pursuit of the English throne. One of the most convoluted wars in history is condensed and simplified and dramatized; if this is to the detriment of academic history, it at least keeps the time alive in our minds, and this is no small thing. The play is easy to follow in its sweep, even if some of the supporting characters can become muddled (a good annotated show more version is recommended, to keep it all in check).

But this lean division into heroes and villains means the power of the play doesn't stay for too long past the final 'Exeunt', when – freed from the intoxicating presence of Richard's villainy – we find we have lacked the meat to sink our teeth into. One of Shakespeare's strengths in his whole body of work is his moral ambiguity: in his tragedies like Macbeth and King Lear, in his other historical plays like Henry V, and even in his more wicked comedies like The Merchant of Venice. Allowing for the fact that Richard III is one of the Bard's earlier plays, I cannot help but see it as a proto-Macbeth, in which a ruthless and ambitious nobleman commits outrages in wrongful pursuit of a crown, before his ghosts come back to haunt him (literally, in both cases) and he gets his comeuppance on the field of battle.

But the political context of Macbeth was less perilous for Shakespeare, with the new King James's heritage to Duncan being so far removed that the playwright could attribute some moral fibre and ambiguity to the character of Macbeth, enhancing the tragedy of his climb and his fall. Richard, by contrast, is defeated by Henry Tudor at the Battle of Bosworth: any attempt by Shakespeare to place him in a positive light – simply for dramatic tension – would be dangerous, for it would question the legitimacy of the Tudor line of succession at a time when Henry's granddaughter Elizabeth was on the throne. Consequently, we get no tragedy from Richard's story – the closest we get is his famous 'my kingdom for a horse' scene. Richard III remains firmly bound by the strictures of propaganda and the historical play, never allowed – through no fault of the author – to become a true tragedy. And with modern historians willing to rehabilitate Richard, it loses some utility as a historical play too. Richard III should not be relegated to a lowly status, as merely an example of Tudor propaganda, for it is too good for that – but the blood of a modern audience would be quickened more by a daring line or two showing sympathy for Richard than they will be by another episode of his cartoonish villainy. But then, if Shakespeare had provided such lines, he might not have kept his head on his shoulders long enough to write those later plays, which deftly display the moral ambiguity I thirsted for here. show less