W.

Shakespeare: Richard III

A history play that concludes the Henry VI sequence, although complete on
its own.
original title: The Tragedy of the Kinge Richard the Third --appears in the
First Folio among the history plays;
Probably written straight after the three Henry VI plays and so in 1591-2;
Source: the 2nd edition (1587) of Holinshed's Chronicles of England,
Scotland and Ireland; this may have used Hall's chronicle The Union of the
Two Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancaster and York (1548). Hall himself
was influenced by Sir Thomas More's Life of Richard III (1513), from which
the chief aspects of Richard's character and the ironic tone of the writer's
attitude to him were probably derived.
Richard III was the last king of England of the royal house of York. He was
a staunch supporter of his elder brother Edward IV against the Lancastrians.
He was killed at the battle of Bosworth Field by the army of Henry Tudor,
later Henry VII. He was famously depicted by Shakespeare as 'Crookback'
but contemporary evidence of his physical appearance is not conclusive.
The Villain: The villain for the Elizabethans is a person who, for a selfish
end, deliberately violates the standards of morality sanctioned by the
audience. He is the absolute embodiment of evil encompassing all the
features of fraud, deception, jealousy and envy.
He was the last of thirteen kings in the Plantagenet line, who had ruled
England since 1154 and the last English king to die on the battlefield.
Surviving records only preserve the facts, but not the motives. In
connection with Richard’s case there is no court history, no personal
correspondence, nor even a surviving contemporary portrait, which would
help to illuminate his personality or appearance. He remains an enigma.
The caricatures that blackened the image of Richard have been mostly
compiled during the reign of his successor, Henry VII. And these are the
ones that apparently Shakespeare adapted for the figure of his monstrous
villain.
Within the play Richard is an isolated stock villain without friends and his
followers are those who owe their positions to his favour.
The other problem concerns Richard’s appearance. As there seem to be no
body-length portraits of Richard, it is difficult to estimate whether he was
in reality as bodily deformed as Shakespeare makes him out to be. In
Fraser’s edition on Richard’s biography, there is no mention of him having
been born with such a handicap.

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In the late medieval period a crippled person entailed an evil mind, and this
is Richard’s obvious motive for acting the villain (see I. i. 14-23)
By presenting himself in the worst possible light Richard ensures that his
evil machinations will not be the cause of further surprises, on the contrary,
the audience may even enjoy his evil deeds just as Richard does.
Therefore Shakespeare was interested in Richard’s character only as long
as he could create a play that would capture his audience. The “character
of Richard remains consistent with itself from first to last. His end fulfills his
beginning.” (B Spivack p. 388)
The loneliness that surrounds Richard pursues him until the final moment.
To stress his isolation he presents himself in the beginning in his famous
soliloquy and reveals his plans only to the audience. Due to his appearance,
his ugly face and deformed body, Richard is segregated from the rest of
society and his immense energy, which he cannot invest in favourable
matters or activities (love, pleasure, compassion, society) is left to feed his
own remorseless ambition.
Richard, the isolated stock villain and ‘intimate enemy,’ is affectionate at
once with everyone and no one. But there is only one person whom he truly
loves and trusts:
Richard loves Richard that is I [am] I. (V. iii. 195)
Richard is truly himself until the final moment. He is the monster who
derives his monstrosity from his ugliness and his sense of moral solitude.
His character maintains itself as “the moral image of a formidable, if
depraved, human nature, drawn from history and dramatized by the
method of naturalistic art.” (B Spivack p. 393)
The disguise most often reverted to by Richard is the showy and brilliant
device of weeping. He uses this device so cunningly and to such extreme as
no other ‘formal Vice’. This has the effect of rendering his opponents
speechless and eventually bending them to his will.
Richard’s victims, like Clarence, are his dupes who let themselves be
convinced of his love. But this is merely the showy type of love that Richard
manages to play off extremely well. To ensure that his methods are
successful, he provokes quarrels and demonstrates his ability to make
others quarrel. He himself does not argue or quarrel essentially. And to
enjoy the effect of his shameless insolence he shares his pleasure with the
audience.
Richard’s most brilliant exhibition of manipulation is of Lady Anne, mainly
because she is his most difficult undertaking. The hatred and aversion she
feels for the murderer of her beloved husband and her royal father-in-law

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correspond “to the more abstract enmity of virtue to vice that puts the Vice
of the moralities on his mettle when faced with the equivalent situation”
(Spivack p. 404).
Wooing Lady Anne --This is a scene where Richard’s ability in deception is
put to the test. In effect, the scene is Richard’s masterpiece. According to
Spivack there is only one other such scene in Shakespeare, and that is in
Othello.
Richard’s appearance and his evil mind are his explanation as to why he is
referred to by his enemies as: “dog, rooting hog, son of hell, boar,
poisonous bunch-backed toad,” just to name the most significant ones.
These are the names of animals bearing a slight resemblance to Richard’s
crippled frame.
Secrecy is a vital feature that is heavily stamped into his character. Richard
does not communicate, except with himself and through himself the
audience. Though Richard’s life is compiled of secrets, these are locked
away within his isolated Self.
Shakespeare creates Richard’s character, which he takes out of English
history (an authentic figure) and places him in a contemporary context, a
character whose ‘spiritual energy’ has its source within its author,
Shakespeare himself. Therefore Richard becomes the Richard of the play
through the fabrication of Shakespeare’s mind. ‘Concocting’ the
contemporary world-view of Renaissance man with history, theatrical
convention and old dramaturgy. “His calibre explains the great energy and
brilliance we discover in this flashing version of the transformed Vice”
(Spivack p. 407).