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Richard III (play)
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Everything about Richard Iii Play totally explained

Richard III is William Shakespeare's unflattering depiction of the short reign of Richard III of England, believed to have been written in approximately 1591. The play is sometimes classified as a tragedy (as in the earliest quarto); but it more correctly belongs to the histories, as classified in the First Folio. It picks up the story from Henry VI, Part III and concludes the historical series that stretches back to Richard II. After Hamlet it's Shakespeare's second longest play and is the longest of the First Folio, whose version of Hamlet is shorter than the Quarto version. The length is generally seen as a drawback, for which reason it's rarely performed unabridged. It is often shortened by cutting peripheral characters.
   Another reason for editing is that Shakespeare assumed that his audiences would be familiar with the Henry VI plays, and frequently made indirect references to events in them, such as Richard's murder of Henry VI or the defeat of Henry's queen Margaret. Nowadays the previous plays are less well-known, so the character of Margaret is often cut and extra lines are sometimes invented or added from the trilogy to explain the characters' relationships.

Sources

Shakespeare's primary source for Richard III, like most of his histories, was Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles; the publication date of the second edition, 1587, being the terminus post quem for the play. Shakespeare likely consulted Edward Hall's The Union of the Two Illustrious Families of Lancaster and York, and according to scholars, was familiar with Samuel Daniel's poem on the civil wars.

Date and text

Richard III is believed to be one of Shakespeare's earliest plays, preceded only by the three parts of Henry VI and perhaps his earliest comedies. It is believed to have been written circa 1591. Although Richard III was entered into the Register of the Stationers Company on October 20, 1597 by the bookseller Andrew Wise, who published the first quarto (Q1) later that year (with printing done by Valentine Simmes), Marlowe's Edward II, which can't have been written much later than 1592 (Marlowe died in 1593) is thought to have been influenced by it. A second quarto (Q2) followed in 1597–printed by Thomas Creede for Andrew Wise–containing an attribution to Shakespeare on its title page and may have been a memorial reconstruction. Q3 appeared in 1602, Q4 in 1605, Q5 in 1612, and Q6 in 1622; the frequency attesting to its popularity. The First Folio version followed in 1623.

Performance

The earliest certain performance occurred on Saturday, November 17, 1633, when Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria watched it on the Queen's birthday. Yet plainly it had been performed many times before that. The Diary of Philip Henslowe records a popular play he calls Buckingham, performed in Dec. 1593 and Jan. 1594; this might have been Shakespeare's play. Colley Cibber produced the most successful of the Restoration adaptations of Shakepeare with his version of Richard III, at Drury Lane starting in 1700. Cibber himself played the role till 1739, and his version was on stage for the next century and a half. (It contained the immortal line "Off with his head; so much for Buckingham" — possibly the most famous Shakespearean line that Shakespeare didn't write.) The original Shakespearean version returned in a production at Sadler's Wells Theatre in 1845.

Characters

(Links are to articles on the historical personages, who may not precisely correspond to Shakespeare's portrayal of them.)

Synopsis

The play begins with Richard describing the accession to the throne of his brother, King Edward IV of England, eldest son of the late Richard, Duke of York. » Now is the winter of our discontent


    made glorious summer by this son (or sun) of York (may refer to the symbol of Richard of York)
   The speech reveals Richard's jealousy and ambition, as his brother, King Edward the Fourth rules the country successfully. Richard is an ugly hunchback, describing himself as "rudely stamp'd" and "deformed, unfinish'd", who can't "strut before a wanton ambling nymph." He responds to the anguish of his condition with an outcast's credo: "I am determined to prove a villain / And hate the idle pleasures of these days." Richard plots to have his brother Clarence, who stands before him in the line of succession, conducted to the Tower of London over a prophecy that "G of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be" - which the king interprets as referring to George of Clarence (although the audience later realise that it was actually a reference to Richard of Gloucester).
   Richard next ingratiates himself with "the Lady Anne" -- Anne Neville, widow of the Lancastrian Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales. Richard confides to the audience, "I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter. What though I kill'd her husband and his father?" Despite her prejudice against him, Anne is won over by his pleas and agrees to marry him. This episode illustrates Richard's supreme skill in the art of insincere flattery.
   The atmosphere at court is poisonous: the established nobles are at odds with the upwardly-mobile relatives of Queen Elizabeth, a hostility fueled by Richard's machinations. Queen Margaret, Henry VI's widow, returns in defiance of her banishment and warns the squabbling nobles about Richard. The nobles, Yorkists all, reflexively unite against this last Lancastrian, and the warning falls on deaf ears.
   Richard orders two murderers to kill his brother Clarence in the tower. Clarence, meanwhile, relates a dream to his keeper. The dream includes extremely visual language describing Clarence falling from an imaginary ship as a result of Gloucester, who had fallen from the hatches, striking him. Under the water Clarence sees the skeletons of thousands of men "that fishes gnawed upon." He also sees "wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, inestimable stones, unvalued jewels." All of these are "scatterd in the bottom of the sea." Clarence adds that some of the jewels were in the skulls of the dead. Clarence then imagines dying and being tormented by the ghosts of his father-in-law (Warwick, Anne's father) and brother-in-law (Edward, Anne's former husband) in a hellish afterlife.
   After Clarence falls asleep, Brakenbury, Lieutenant of the Tower of London, enters and observes that between the titles of princes and the low names of commoners there's nothing different but the "outward fame," meaning that they both have "inward toil" whether rich or poor. When the murderers arrive, he reads their warrant (which is falsely portrayed as being from the king), and exits with the Keeper, who disobeys Clarence's request to stand by him, and leaves the two murderers the keys.
   Clarence wakes and pleads with the murderers, saying that men have no right to obey other men's requests for murder, because all men are under the rule of God not to commit murder. The murderers imply Clarence is a hypocrite because he "unripdst the bowels of (his) sovereign's son (Edward) whom (he was) sworn to cherish and defend." Tactically trying to win them over, he tells them to go to his brother Gloucester who will reward them better for his life than "Edward will for tidings of (his) death." One murderer insists Gloucester himself sent them to perform the bloody act, but Clarence doesn't believe this. He recalls the unity of Richard Duke of York blessing his three sons with his victorious arm, bidding his brother Gloucester to "think on this and he'll weep." Sardonically, a murderer says Gloucester weeps millstones.
   Next, one of the murderers explains that his brother Gloucester hates him, and sent them to the Tower to perform the foul act. Eventually, the murderer with a conscience is persuaded by Clarence not to kill him, but it's too late. The other killer stabs Clarence and drowns him in "the Malmsey butt within". The remorseful murderer regrets the death, and is chastised by the other for not participating. The first act closes with the perpetrator needing to find a hole to bury Clarence. Whether this murderer is Tyrell is unclear, but seems rather logical as Richard later says he "partly know(s) the man" when calling for Tyrell to perform a heinous deed in Act IV.
   Edward IV, weakened by a reign dominated by physical excess, soon dies, leaving as Protector his brother Richard, who sets about removing the final obstacles to his accession. He meets his nephew, the young Edward V, who is en route to London for his coronation accompanied by relatives of Edward's widow. These Richard arrests and (eventually) beheads, and the young prince and his brother are coaxed into an extended stay at the Tower of London.
   Assisted by his cousin Buckingham (Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham), Richard mounts a campaign to present himself as a preferable candidate to the throne, appearing as a modest, devout man with no pretensions to greatness. Lord Hastings, who objects to Richard's ascension, is arrested and executed on a trumped-up charge. Together, Richard and Buckingham, spread the rumor that Edward's two sons are illegitimate, and therefore have no rightful claim to the throne. The other lords are cajoled into accepting Richard as king, in spite of the continued survival of his nephews (the Princes in the Tower). His new status leaves Richard sufficiently confident to dispose of his nephews. Buckingham conditions his consent for the princes' deaths on receiving a land grant, which Richard rejects, leaving Buckingham fearful for his life. Richard tries his old dissembling to get into princess Elizabeth's "nest of spicery", but her mother isn't taken in by his eloquence. As the body count rises, the increasingly paranoid Richard loses what popularity he had; he soon faces rebellions led first by Buckingham and subsequently by the invading Earl of Richmond (Henry VII of England). Both sides arrive for a final battle at Bosworth Field. Prior to the battle, Richard is visited by the ghosts of those whose deaths he's caused, all of whom tell him to Despair and die!. He awakes screaming for 'Jesu' (Jesus) to help him, slowly realizing that he's all alone in the world and that even he hates himself. Richard's language and undertones of self-remorse seem to indicate that, in the final hour, he's repentant for his evil deeds; however, it's too late.
   As the battle commences, Richard gives arguably the least motivational pep-talk in English literature ("Let not our babbling dreams affright our souls; Conscience is but a word that cowards use... March on, join bravely, let us to't pell mell; If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell...."). Lord Stanley (who happens to be Richmond's step-father) and his followers desert, leaving Richard at a disadvantage. Richard is soon unhorsed on the field at the climax of the battle, and utters the often-quoted line, A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse! He is defeated in the final "hunting of the boar", so to speak, and Richmond succeeds as Henry VII, even going so far as to marry a York, effectively ending the War of the Roses (to the evident relief of everyone involved).
   In dramatic terms, perhaps the most important (and, arguably, the most entertaining) feature of the play is the sudden alteration in Richard's character. For the first 'half' of the play, we see him as something of an anti-hero, causing mayhem and enjoying himself hugely in the process:
» I do mistake my person all this while;


    Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot, » Myself to be a marvellous proper man.


    I'll be at charges for a looking-glass;
   Almost immediately after he's crowned, however, his personality and actions take a darker turn. He turns against loyal Buckingham ("I am not in the giving vein"), he falls prey to self-doubt ("I am in so far in blood, that sin will pluck on sin;"); now he sees shadows where none exist and visions of his doom to come ("Despair & die").

Themes and motifs

Comedic elements

The play resolutely avoids demonstrations of physical violence; only Clarence and Richard III die on-stage, while the rest (the two princes, Hastings, Grey, Vaughan, Rivers, Anne, Buckingham, and King Edward) all meet their ends off-stage. Despite the villainous nature of the title character and the grim storyline, Shakespeare infuses the action with comic material, as he does with most of his tragedies. Much of the humour rises from the dichotomy between what we know Richard's character to be and how Richard tries to appear. The prime example is perhaps the portion of Act III, Scene 1, where Richard is forced to "play nice" with the young and mocking Duke of York. Other examples appear in Richard's attempts at acting, first in the matter of justifying Hastings' death and later in his coy response to being offered the crown.
   Richard himself also provides some dry remarks in evaluating the situation, as when he plans to marry the Queen Elizabeth's daughter: "Murder her brothers, then marry her; Uncertain way of gain...." Other examples of humor in this play include Clarence's ham-fisted and half-hearted murderers, and the Duke of Buckingham's report on his attempt to persuade the Londoners to accept Richard ("...I bid them that did love their country's good cry, God save Richard, England's royal king!" Richard: "And did they so?" Buckingham: "No, so God help me, they spake not a word....") Puns, a Shakespearean staple, are especially well-represented in the scene where Richard tries to persuade Queen Elizabeth to woo her daughter on his behalf.

Free Will and Fatalism

One of the central themes of Richard III is the idea of fate, especially as it's seen through the tension between free will and fatalism in the actions and speech of the villain-hero, Richard, as well as the reactions to him by other characters. There is no doubt that Shakespeare drew heavily from Sir Thomas More’s account of Richard III as a criminal and tyrant as inspiration for his own rendering. This influence, especially as it relates to the role of divine punishment in Richard’s rule of England, reaches its height in the voice of Margaret. As Janis Lull, a noted Shakespeare scholar from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, suggests, “Margaret gives voice to the belief, encouraged by the growing Calvinism of the Elizabethan era, that individual historical events are determined by God, who often punishes evil with (apparent) evil”.
   Thus, it seems possible that Shakespeare, in conforming to the growing “Tudor Myth” of the day, as well as taking into account new theologies of divine action and human will becoming popular in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, sought to paint Richard as the final curse of God on England in punishment for the deposition of Richard II in 1399.
   Victor Kiernan, a Marxist scholar and historian, writes that this interpretation is a perfect fit with the English social perspective of Shakespeare’s day: “An extension is in progress of a privileged class’s assurance of preferential treatment in the next world as in this, to a favoured nation’s conviction of having God on its side, of Englishmen being…the new Chosen People”. As Elizabethan England was slowly colonizing the world, the populace embraced the view of its own Divine Right and Appointment to do so, much as Richard does in Shakespeare’s play.
   However, historical fatalism is merely one side of the argument of fate against free will. It is also possible that Shakespeare intended to portray Richard as “…a personification of the Machiavellian view of history as power politics”. One word that Shakespeare gave potential to was "joy." This was employed in ACT I, SCENE III, where it was used to show “deliberate emotional effect”. Haeffner agrees that Richard is “an individualist, hating dignity and formality”. Janis Lull also takes special notice of the mourning women. She suggests that they're associated with “figures of repetition as anaphora – beginning each clause in a sequence with the same word – and epistrophe – repeating the same word at the end of each clause”. One example of the epistrophe can be found in Margaret’s speech in ACT I, SCENE III. Haeffner refers to these as few of many “devices and tricks of style” that occur in the play, showcasing Shakespeare’s ability to bring out the potential of every word.

Notable stage performances of Richard III

  • Ciarán Hinds
  • F. Murray Abraham
  • John Barrymore
  • Junius Brutus Booth
  • John Wilkes Booth
  • Kenneth Branagh
  • Richard Burbage
  • Peter Dinklage
  • David Garrick
  • Ian Holm
  • Edmund Kean
  • Anton Lesser
  • Ian McKellen
  • Laurence Olivier
  • Al Pacino
  • Ian Richardson
  • Antony Sher
  • Barry Sullivan
  • Donald Wolfit

    Adaptations and Cultural References

    Film versions

    The most famous player of the part in recent times was Laurence Olivier in his 1955 film version. His inimitable rendition has been parodied by many comedians including Peter Cook and Peter Sellers. Sellers, who had aspirations to do the role straight, appeared in a 1965 TV special on The Beatles' music by reciting "A Hard Day's Night" in the style of Olivier's Richard III. The first series of the BBC television comedy in part parodies the Olivier film, visually (as in the crown motif), Peter Cook's performance as a Richard who is a jolly, loving monarch but nevertheless oddly reminiscent of Olivier's rendition, and by mangling Shakespearean text ("Now is the summer of our sweet content made o'ercast winter by these Tudor clouds...")
       More recently, Richard III has been brought to the screen by Sir Ian McKellen (1995) in an abbreviated version set in a fictional 1930s fascist England, and by Al Pacino in the 1996 documentary, Looking for Richard. In the 1977 film The Goodbye Girl, Richard Dreyfuss' character, an actor, gives a memorable performance as a homosexual Richard due to his director's unconventional interpretation of the play. In 2002 the story of Richard III was re-told in a movie about gang culture called The Street King.
       A 2006 film version of Richard III is part of the independent film-noir titled Purgatory, a retelling of three classic Shakespeare tales, including Richard III. The 2008 version, Richard III, stars Scott M. Anderson and David Carradine.
       In 1996, a pristine print of Richard III (1912), starring Frederick Warde as Richard III was discovered by a private collector and donated to the American Film Institute. The 55-minute film is considered to be the earliest surviving American feature film.

    Cultural references

  • The play has been the subject of many comedy sketches, in shows such as Monty Python's Flying Circus.
  • In Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair (2001), Richard III has a similar cult status to The Rocky Horror Show.
  • Ian Richardson claimed to have based his performance as Francis Urquhart in House of Cards on the character of Richard III.
  • In Spike Jonze's film, Being John Malkovich, Malkovich, playing himself, appears in one scene as Richard III in production for a small theatre company.
  • The film Freaked featured obnoxious pretty-boy actor Ricky Coogan, disfigured, performing Richard's opening monologue with subtitles that reduce the text to "I'm ugly. I never get laid".
  • In the 1977 Neil Simon film, The Goodbye Girl, Richard Dreyfuss plays an actor who is directed to perform the role of Richard III very unconventionally off-off-Broadway.
  • In the BBC series Blackadder, Richard III is played by Peter Cook, as having survived the Wars of the Roses, and is killed accidently by Blackadder, played by Rowan Atkinson.
  • Lines from the play have been quoted or misquoted in many contexts, including:

    Notes and references

  • Baldwin, Pat and Baldwin, Tom. 2000 (eds.). Cambridge School Shakespeare: King Richard III Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • British Library Publishing Drama in Early Modern Europe Retrieved: 10 December 2007.
  • Haeffner, Paul. 1966. Shakespeare: Richard III London: Macmillan.
  • Halliday, F.E. 1964. A Shakespeare Companion 1564-1964, Baltimore, Penguin.
  • Kiernan, Victor. 1993. Shakespeare: Poet and Citizen London: Verso.
  • Lull, Janis. 1999 (ed.). The New Cambridge Shakespeare: Richard III Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Ribner, Irving. 1999. "Richard III as an English History Play" Critical Essays on Shakespeare's Richard III Ed. Hugh Macrae Richmond. New York.Further Information

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