Kevin Spacey in
Richard III
by William Shakespeare
Richard III
by William Shakespeare
Have we completely misinterpreted Shakespeare’s Richard III?
Many of Shakespeare’s plays have been taken as works of historical fact, but we may have been deceived for the past 400 years – particularly in the case of Richard III. Shakespeare’s original audience, argues Matthew Lewis, would have recognised the leading character as representing a more contemporary figure…
William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of King Richard the Third is a masterpiece: the depiction of evil that dares us to like the villain and question, as we laugh along with his jokes, why we find such a man attractive.
The play is believed to have been written in around 1593 and its political context gives it a wider meaning. Queen Elizabeth I was ageing and obviously not going to produce an heir. The question of the succession grew like a weed, untended by all (at least in public), yet the identity of the next monarch was of huge importance to the entire country. Religious tensions ran high and the swings between the Protestant Edward VI, the Catholic Mary I and the Protestant Elizabeth I were still causing turmoil 60 years after Henry VIII’s reformation.
Shakespeare is believed by some to have been a devout Catholic all of his life, hiding his faith and working for sponsors such as the earls of Essex and Southampton, whose sympathies were also with the old faith. Opposed to those keen for a return to Catholicism was the powerful Cecil family. William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, had been Elizabeth’s constant supporter and advisor throughout her reign and was, by the early 1590s, as old age crept up on him, paving the way for his son to take on the same role. The Cecil's favoured a Protestant succession by James VI of Scotland. It is against this backdrop that Shakespeare wrote his play and his real villain may have been a very contemporary player.
The Tragedy of King Richard the Third is replete with demonstrable errors of fact, chronology and geography. The first edition reversed the locations of Northampton and Stony Stratford to allow Richard to ambush the party of Edward V (one of the princes in the Tower) party rather than have them travel beyond the meeting place. Early in the play Richard tells his audience “I’ll marry Warwick’s youngest daughter./ What, though I killed her husband and her father?’” Accounts of both the battles of Barnet (April 1471) and Tewkesbury (May 1471) make it almost certain neither Warwick nor Edward of Westminster was killed by Richard.
The ending of the play is also misinterpreted. The infamous “A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!” is often mistaken for a cowardly plea to flee the field. Read in context, it is in fact Richard demanding a fresh horse to re-enter the fray and seek out Richmond (Henry Tudor). Even Shakespeare did not deny Richard his valiant end.
Shakespeare’s Richard delights in arranging the murder of his brother Clarence by their other brother Edward IV through trickery when in fact Edward’s execution of Clarence was believed by contemporaries to have driven a wedge between them that kept Richard away from Edward’s court. The seed of this misdirection is sown much earlier in the cycle of history plays too. In Henry VI, Part II Richard kills the Duke of Somerset at the battle of St Albans in 1455, when in fact he was just two-and-a-half years old.
The revelation at the beginning of the play that King Edward fears a prophesy that ‘G’ will disinherit his sons is perhaps another signpost to misdirection. Edward and Richard’s brother George, Duke of Clarence tells Richard “He hearkens after prophecies and dreams./ And from the cross-row plucks the letter G./ And says a wizard told him that by G/ His issue disinherited should be./ And, for my name of George begins with G./ It follows in his thought that I am he.”
George is therefore assumed to be the threat, ignoring the fact the Richard’s title, Duke of Gloucester, also marks him as a ‘G’. Before Clarence arrives, Richard appears to know of the prophesy and that George will be the target of Edward’s fear, suggesting that he had a hand in the trick and that a thin veil is being drawn over the obvious within the play. The true villain is slipping past unseen as signs are misread or ignored.
The language of the play’s famous opening soliloquy is interesting in the context of when it was written. In autumn 1592, Thomas Nashe’s play Summer’s Last Will and Testament was first performed in Croydon. Narrated by the ghost of Will Summer, Henry VIII’s famous court jester, it tells the story of the seasons and their adherents. Summer is king but lacks an heir, lamenting “Had I some issue to sit on my throne,/ My grief would die, death should not hear me grone”. Summer adopts Autumn as his heir but Winter will then follow – and his rule is not to be looked forward to. When Richard tells us “Now is the winter of our discontent/ Made glorious summer by this sun of York” it is perhaps not, at least not only, a clever reference to Edward IV’s badge of the sunne in splendour.
Elizabeth I, great-granddaughter of Edward IV, could be the “sun of York”, and this might explain the use of “sun” rather than “son”. Using Nashe’s allegory, Elizabeth is made summer by her lack of an heir that allows winter, his real villain, in during the autumn of her reign. The very first word of the play might be a hint that Shakespeare expected his audience to understand that the relevance of the play is very much “Now”.
Richard was able to perform this role for Shakespeare because of his unique position as a figure who could be abused but who also provided the moral tale and political parallels the playwright needed. The Yorkist family of Edward IV were direct ancestors of Elizabeth I and attacking them would have been a very bad move. Richard stood outside this protection. By imbuing Richard with the deeds of his father at St Albans, there is a link between the actions and sins of father and son, the son eventually causing the catastrophic downfall of his house. Here, Shakespeare returns to the father and son team now leading England toward a disaster – the Cecil's.
I suspect that Shakespeare meant his audience to recognise, in the play’s Richard III character, Robert Cecil, William’s son – and that in the 1590s they would very clearly have done so. Motley’s History of the Netherlands (published in 1888) described Robert’s appearance in 1588 as “A slight, crooked, hump-backed young gentleman, dwarfish in stature” and later remarked on the “massive dissimulation” that would “constitute a portion of his own character”. Robert Cecil had kyphosis – in Shakespeare’s crude parlance, a hunchback – and a reputation for dissimulation. I imagine Shakespeare’s first audience nudging each other as Richard hobbled onto the stage and whispering that it was plainly Robert Cecil.
Literature Databases
The human experiences you may wish to explore in this text could include:
- The Soul
- Power
- Control
- Corruption
- Evil
- Family
- Connections
- Relationships
- Ambition
- Death
- Disability
- Inferiority
- Alliances
- Stigmatism
- Struggle
- Emotions
- Rational Thought
- Language Use
- Love
- Loss
- Morality
- Community
GO TO CLICKVIEW TO FIND:
Richard III - Contributed by Concordia College 5/9/16
Based upon the famous National Theatre production Shakespeare's story of Richard III is set in a mythical fascist London of the 1930s. Richard seeks to gain the throne from his elder brother, Edward, by any means within his grasp including murder, marriage, and fratricide. But aside from Edward, his other brother (Clarence) and Edward's two young sons also stand between Richard and the crown of England
Richard The Third - St Pius X College 23/10/13
In this programme in which Rosemary Anne Sisson talks about Shakespeare as a dramatist, studying the transfer of sympathy and focus of Richard III to the decidedly unsympathetic central character.
Richard III - Contributed by Concordia College 5/9/16
Based upon the famous National Theatre production Shakespeare's story of Richard III is set in a mythical fascist London of the 1930s. Richard seeks to gain the throne from his elder brother, Edward, by any means within his grasp including murder, marriage, and fratricide. But aside from Edward, his other brother (Clarence) and Edward's two young sons also stand between Richard and the crown of England
Richard The Third - St Pius X College 23/10/13
In this programme in which Rosemary Anne Sisson talks about Shakespeare as a dramatist, studying the transfer of sympathy and focus of Richard III to the decidedly unsympathetic central character.
LINKS
https://uvic.summon.serialssolutions.com/#!/search?
ho=t&fvf=ContentType,Book%20Review,t&l=en&q=AuthorCombined:%22Shakespeare,%20William%22
https://uvic.summon.serialssolutions.com/#!/search?ho=t&fvf=ContentType,Book%20Review,t&l=en&q=Looking%20for%20Richard
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b017gm45/episodes/downloads
https://www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/richard-iii-and-the-will-to-power#
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojQxjKbWmNY
https://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/richardiii/
https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1212&context=clcweb
https://www.virtuallibrary.info/english-advanced-module-a-textual-conversations.html
https://www.cleareducation.com.au/blog/post/2314/Richard-III-and-Looking-for-Richard-Quotes-and-Analysis/
https://www.matrix.edu.au/module-a-king-richard-iii-looking-for-richard-part-1-dos-and-donts/
https://shmoop.com/william-shakespeare/
https://shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/
www.rogerebert.com/reviews/richard-iii-1996-1
study.com/academy/lesson/shakespeares-richard-iii-character-analysis.html
www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/richardiii/richardcharacter.html
public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/shakespeare/richardIII.2.html
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=richard+iii+laurence+olivier+full+movie&safe=on&gws_rd=ssl
LINK TO MOVIE - LOOKING FOR RICHARD
https://online.clickview.com.au/libraries/videos/e3d1d49f-66bf-f85c-7897-04f725e65d8f/looking-for-richard
https://online.clickview.com.au/exchange/videos/18479/books-to-films
Richard III and Looking for Richard - Quotes and Analysis
Comparing Shakespeare’s play King Richard III and Al Pacino’s ‘drama’ documentary Looking For Richard. Taking a closer look at the contexts of these two texts, along with some quotes, techniques and analysis from each. Specifically, you can examine how studying the differences and parallels between the texts shows how the key values of the Shakespeare’s texts are universal, and still relevant to society today.
Context:
The play is thought to be written in approximately 1592, and was born into a period of time in England named the Elizabethan Era. This era of history involved a significant amount of religious and political tension in the country, specifically between Catholics and Protestants. Furthermore, there was a growing movement in society towards secularism and the belief in the free will of the individual, and a growing critique of traditional Christian ideology of morality and spiritual order. It seems that Shakespeare comments on these tensions occurring in society at the time.
Al Pacino’s Postmodern docudrama, on the other hand, was written in 1996, and is both a performance of scenes from scenes of Shakespeare’s play and an exploration of Shakespeare’s continuing relevance in contemporary society. Society at this time does not have such a blind faith in religion and other institutions, and instead is growingly secular.
Quotes and Examples:
Richard’s initial soliloquy immediately suggests to the audience that the historic Richard’s deformity is far beyond a physical abnormality. His physiognomy “deformed, unfinished, sent beyond my time” acts as a metaphor to define his devilish nature, affirming the Tudor myth of an evil appearance indicating an evil and immoral nature. In this way, a Tudor audience can effectively conceptualise Richard’s Machiavellian nature through his accentuated deformity - making known his central place in the play as the conniving villain whose innate evil is far beyond an immorality and desire for power. Richard is thoroughly acquainted with his deformity and its connotations, and uses what he believes to be an iniquitous neglect of nature to validate his revenge against a society that excludes him and justify his pursuit of the crown. The verb ‘determined’ in his declaration “I am determined to be proved a villain” highlights his dedication to appropriating the public perception of his deformity for his Humanist agenda.
Pacino similarly explores the complexity of villainy, valuing Richard III’s ability to be duplicitous. This extends the emphasis upon performance in Richard III where performance is for political reasons, whereas for Pacino performance is utilised for entertainment reasons. Through his docudrama form, Pacino manipulates himself into a position of both actor and director of his play, aligning Richard’s duplicity to his own megalomania and the way in which he performs the character of Richard III. To his modern 20th Century audience whom do not value moral scruples of the Tudor period, Pacino’s representation of Richard does not attempt to portray the social chaos caused by Richard’s duplicity and deception, instead offering a new insight into moral relativism and Richard’s deceit. Pacino’s choice to open and close the film with an intertextual reference to Prospero’s speech in Shakespeare’s The Tempest “These our actors… were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air… all which it inherit, shall dissolve; And, like this insubstantial pageant faded… and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.” conveys a contemporary ambiguity, blurring the boundaries between performance and reality. In this sense, the film is less concerned with the moral aspect of ‘truth’ and ‘deceit’, and more taken with the skilful manipulation of appearance and reality.
Comparing Shakespeare’s play King Richard III and Al Pacino’s ‘drama’ documentary Looking For Richard. Taking a closer look at the contexts of these two texts, along with some quotes, techniques and analysis from each. Specifically, you can examine how studying the differences and parallels between the texts shows how the key values of the Shakespeare’s texts are universal, and still relevant to society today.
Context:
The play is thought to be written in approximately 1592, and was born into a period of time in England named the Elizabethan Era. This era of history involved a significant amount of religious and political tension in the country, specifically between Catholics and Protestants. Furthermore, there was a growing movement in society towards secularism and the belief in the free will of the individual, and a growing critique of traditional Christian ideology of morality and spiritual order. It seems that Shakespeare comments on these tensions occurring in society at the time.
Al Pacino’s Postmodern docudrama, on the other hand, was written in 1996, and is both a performance of scenes from scenes of Shakespeare’s play and an exploration of Shakespeare’s continuing relevance in contemporary society. Society at this time does not have such a blind faith in religion and other institutions, and instead is growingly secular.
Quotes and Examples:
Richard’s initial soliloquy immediately suggests to the audience that the historic Richard’s deformity is far beyond a physical abnormality. His physiognomy “deformed, unfinished, sent beyond my time” acts as a metaphor to define his devilish nature, affirming the Tudor myth of an evil appearance indicating an evil and immoral nature. In this way, a Tudor audience can effectively conceptualise Richard’s Machiavellian nature through his accentuated deformity - making known his central place in the play as the conniving villain whose innate evil is far beyond an immorality and desire for power. Richard is thoroughly acquainted with his deformity and its connotations, and uses what he believes to be an iniquitous neglect of nature to validate his revenge against a society that excludes him and justify his pursuit of the crown. The verb ‘determined’ in his declaration “I am determined to be proved a villain” highlights his dedication to appropriating the public perception of his deformity for his Humanist agenda.
Pacino similarly explores the complexity of villainy, valuing Richard III’s ability to be duplicitous. This extends the emphasis upon performance in Richard III where performance is for political reasons, whereas for Pacino performance is utilised for entertainment reasons. Through his docudrama form, Pacino manipulates himself into a position of both actor and director of his play, aligning Richard’s duplicity to his own megalomania and the way in which he performs the character of Richard III. To his modern 20th Century audience whom do not value moral scruples of the Tudor period, Pacino’s representation of Richard does not attempt to portray the social chaos caused by Richard’s duplicity and deception, instead offering a new insight into moral relativism and Richard’s deceit. Pacino’s choice to open and close the film with an intertextual reference to Prospero’s speech in Shakespeare’s The Tempest “These our actors… were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air… all which it inherit, shall dissolve; And, like this insubstantial pageant faded… and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.” conveys a contemporary ambiguity, blurring the boundaries between performance and reality. In this sense, the film is less concerned with the moral aspect of ‘truth’ and ‘deceit’, and more taken with the skilful manipulation of appearance and reality.
Related Texts
- Al Pacino’s Looking for Richard V Margaret Atwood’s Hagseed is a novel about a staging of Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
STUDY NOTES
William Shakespeare's King Richard III & Al Pacino's Looking for Richard Study Notes for Advanced English - Top Notes
No Fear Shakespeare Richard III - Spark Notes
Richard III Shakespeare In Performance - The Sourcebooks Shakespeare (A downloadable DVD of this is available on Oliver)
BH
William Shakespeare's King Richard III & Al Pacino's Looking for Richard Study Notes for Advanced English - Top Notes
No Fear Shakespeare Richard III - Spark Notes
Richard III Shakespeare In Performance - The Sourcebooks Shakespeare (A downloadable DVD of this is available on Oliver)
BH