Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Signet Classics (1967), Edition: Updated, Paperback, 256 pages
Description
Drama. Fiction. HTML: Richard III belongs to Shakespeare's folio of King Richard plays, and is the longest of his plays after Hamlet. It is classified variously as a tragedy and a history, showing the reign of Richard III in an unflattering light. The play's length springs in part from its reference to the other Richard plays, with which Shakespeare assumed his audience would be familiar. These references and characters are often edited out to create an abridged version when the play is performed for modern audiences..
User reviews
LibraryThing member MeditationesMartini
Richard, literature's greatest monster of indignation? I can't help but compare him to Iago--really can't help it, because the Richard I saw Bob Frazer play at Bard on the Beach the other night and the Iago I saw him play back in 2009 have such suggestive similarities.
Iago gets archetypalized, and
Is it too much to posit that the difference between real evil and the "mere" twisted and wrong that is the distillation of human pain is the difference between foulness with a fair face and foulness that looks foul? I've been thinking a lot about the limits of responsibility lately, and toying with the probably extreme but seductive and satisfying viewpoint that nobody's responsible for anything, ever, in a transcendent or a moral way. I don't know if I really believe it, but it leaves us with a principle to be debated when we come back to the question of where we forgive and where we condemn--malice that comes out of success, esteem, trust, handsomeness, camaraderie, triumphs aplenty, like Iago's: that is evil. But it's hard to say what good the principle really is in our practical ethical dilemmas, given that we can never really know anyone well enough to pass that kind of judgment. I guess it leaves us with a theoretical but indeterminate principle of evil, in theory, for now.
And that's where Frazer's Richard comes in. He is the malignancy, the blot, the Spider King. Quite literally that, rushing forward on his crutches like a bug up your face and then when you* sweep it frantically away and twist it, crumple and break it without anywise meaning to, that's when he shows you that the ugly and bent is not the weak and broken and jumps down your throat dripping with poison. But nobody is taken in. They hate him because he's ugly, but their desire to seem unafraid causes them to act nonchalant, even to find excuses in his royal blood to treat him as part of the band of brothers.
They make him with their horror and hypocrisy, and he kills them all, of course. And of course the logic I've outlined makes this a perfect story for Shakespeare, and this being Shakespeare, Richard is of course doomed as well. He's a magnificent character, one of the all-time gross and great, and let me say again for the record that Frazer played him magnificently, with his liplicking and hatred and glee.
I don't think this is a perfect play, by any means; it hangs so crucially on the protagonist (here I've spent this whole review talking about him, well, and Iago, I guess) and everyone else seems window-dressing; it would have been fascinating if the venial lords who convince themselves Richard's just another one of them, to be trusted just as far and no further than they are, had come to quickened threatening life, if this in its first half had been a play about machinations and not inevitable rise, and only then in the second act, as it is, a play about inevitable downfall, it would have been more compelling I think to a 21st-century audience. This leads into a more general discomfort with great-man history from my perspective, but one which again I think a more balanced picture of the political manoeuvrings would have done something to help address, since it is undoubtedly two that back then only the gentry counted, be they great or no. I think the comedic scenes in this one, especially the conscience-searching before the murder of Clarence, are especially good; I think the primes steal the scene in their brief appearance, and if that hammers home the logic of their murder in a grimy way, which is good, it also means they're removed from the stage, which is dramaturgically bad; I think the whole second act, where England descends into fascist dark and then the bullies come back from polo or whatever in France and fight and win, and we're glad that the doofy brute Richmond, and not his opposite number livid broken sad Richard, wins, is not inferior to Lolita in the ways it makes us complicit (while still giving us some sweet fight scenes and brooding-lord pageantry, climaxing in the incredible ghost scene, which I wonder if it's the first instance of the ol' "it was only a dream" cliche, don't you?). But it's imbalanced in the end by the concentrated enmity of the figure at its centre. Not a perfect play; but Richard goes on the long shortlist of literature's most perfectly turned characters.
*you are the Lady Anne, you are Elizabeth Woodville, you are the men too, in the unmanned way an Elizabethan blood might have felt when stumbling into a nest of creepy-crawlies, but predominantly, let it be noted, you are the women, whose desire to protect makes them susceptible to Richard in the way that the men's asshole revulsion at the bent makes them not. Men created Richard the monster, perhaps, and women made his success as monster possible. In that light, his relationship with his mother, a hard woman, takes on an interesting light, as well as the fact that it's Queen Margaret's curse that brings him down. I don't endorse the idea of a perversion of women's 'natural role' that I see in this play, Master Will, but I do fear me it's there.
Iago gets archetypalized, and
Show More
all too often played, as the moustache-twirling villain--the spider, the blot, the malignancy who fools everyone, inexplicably. But there shouldn't be anything inexplicable about it. He's "honest Iago", and it's in that that his awfulness lies. Frazer plays him that way--the bluff young honest handsome quick-witted hero of the wars against the Turk, the least villainous of all the characters in the play until he ushers you in. You expect him to flush some kid's head down the toilet, maybe, but not destroy lives.Is it too much to posit that the difference between real evil and the "mere" twisted and wrong that is the distillation of human pain is the difference between foulness with a fair face and foulness that looks foul? I've been thinking a lot about the limits of responsibility lately, and toying with the probably extreme but seductive and satisfying viewpoint that nobody's responsible for anything, ever, in a transcendent or a moral way. I don't know if I really believe it, but it leaves us with a principle to be debated when we come back to the question of where we forgive and where we condemn--malice that comes out of success, esteem, trust, handsomeness, camaraderie, triumphs aplenty, like Iago's: that is evil. But it's hard to say what good the principle really is in our practical ethical dilemmas, given that we can never really know anyone well enough to pass that kind of judgment. I guess it leaves us with a theoretical but indeterminate principle of evil, in theory, for now.
And that's where Frazer's Richard comes in. He is the malignancy, the blot, the Spider King. Quite literally that, rushing forward on his crutches like a bug up your face and then when you* sweep it frantically away and twist it, crumple and break it without anywise meaning to, that's when he shows you that the ugly and bent is not the weak and broken and jumps down your throat dripping with poison. But nobody is taken in. They hate him because he's ugly, but their desire to seem unafraid causes them to act nonchalant, even to find excuses in his royal blood to treat him as part of the band of brothers.
They make him with their horror and hypocrisy, and he kills them all, of course. And of course the logic I've outlined makes this a perfect story for Shakespeare, and this being Shakespeare, Richard is of course doomed as well. He's a magnificent character, one of the all-time gross and great, and let me say again for the record that Frazer played him magnificently, with his liplicking and hatred and glee.
I don't think this is a perfect play, by any means; it hangs so crucially on the protagonist (here I've spent this whole review talking about him, well, and Iago, I guess) and everyone else seems window-dressing; it would have been fascinating if the venial lords who convince themselves Richard's just another one of them, to be trusted just as far and no further than they are, had come to quickened threatening life, if this in its first half had been a play about machinations and not inevitable rise, and only then in the second act, as it is, a play about inevitable downfall, it would have been more compelling I think to a 21st-century audience. This leads into a more general discomfort with great-man history from my perspective, but one which again I think a more balanced picture of the political manoeuvrings would have done something to help address, since it is undoubtedly two that back then only the gentry counted, be they great or no. I think the comedic scenes in this one, especially the conscience-searching before the murder of Clarence, are especially good; I think the primes steal the scene in their brief appearance, and if that hammers home the logic of their murder in a grimy way, which is good, it also means they're removed from the stage, which is dramaturgically bad; I think the whole second act, where England descends into fascist dark and then the bullies come back from polo or whatever in France and fight and win, and we're glad that the doofy brute Richmond, and not his opposite number livid broken sad Richard, wins, is not inferior to Lolita in the ways it makes us complicit (while still giving us some sweet fight scenes and brooding-lord pageantry, climaxing in the incredible ghost scene, which I wonder if it's the first instance of the ol' "it was only a dream" cliche, don't you?). But it's imbalanced in the end by the concentrated enmity of the figure at its centre. Not a perfect play; but Richard goes on the long shortlist of literature's most perfectly turned characters.
*you are the Lady Anne, you are Elizabeth Woodville, you are the men too, in the unmanned way an Elizabethan blood might have felt when stumbling into a nest of creepy-crawlies, but predominantly, let it be noted, you are the women, whose desire to protect makes them susceptible to Richard in the way that the men's asshole revulsion at the bent makes them not. Men created Richard the monster, perhaps, and women made his success as monster possible. In that light, his relationship with his mother, a hard woman, takes on an interesting light, as well as the fact that it's Queen Margaret's curse that brings him down. I don't endorse the idea of a perversion of women's 'natural role' that I see in this play, Master Will, but I do fear me it's there.
Show Less
LibraryThing member baswood
[The Arden Shakespeare - King Richard III]
[Norton Critical Editions - Richard III - Shakespeare]
BBC The Tragedy of Richard III - William Shakespeare
I have been steeped in Shakespeares Richard III this week and steep is probably the word because it can seem like a long climb to the end. The play
The play remains the most performed of all Shakespeare's histories and that is probably because central to the play is the character of Richard III, probably the most evil genius ever to rule England according to Tudor propaganda and many people going to the theatre like to see a bad guy. Just what sort of evil genius you will see not only depends on the actors but also to the cuts made in the text. Cibber for example cut out Clarence's dream and his pleading with his murderers, the prattle with his children, the dialogue with the citizens, the cursing scene with Margaret and much of the scene with the Duchess of York, the spectres visiting the combatants tents at Bosworth field and much else. There was plenty of the play left, but the audience would not have seen Richard at his cleverest or most wittiest. There is much in the text that could be used to show Richard as a clever rogue, no better or worse than some of the other noble members of the houses of York and Lancaster, but if the aim of the production was to depict a malevolent and evil Machiavellian usurper of the crown then a more straightforward reading is possible, like that of Cibber's
The play opens with Richard's soliloquy and one of the most famous of Shakespeares lines:
"Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York"
A soliloquy is a device for passing confidential information to the audience and Richard not only tells us about his feelings of inadequacy in times of peace, his physical deformities, but also of the plots he has laid to get rid of his brother:
"I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days"
The audience immediately knows where they are with Richard, which is more than the other characters do in the play. Richard plays to the gallery, which if there was not an audience that gallery would be only himself. He immediately convinces his brother Clarence he will do everything he can to get him released from the Tower (prison) and then hires a couple of ruffians to murder him. His finest feat of manipulation however is completed shortly afterwards. He joins the funeral cortege of Henry VI and sets out to seduce the Lady Anne who is mourning her husband Prince Edward who Richard killed at the battle of Tewksbury; Richard also killed her father and Anne also knows he killed Henry VI. Richard stops the cortège to speak to and seduce Ann who starts off by calling him a foul devil and black magician, but Richard's wit, his offer to kill himself and his protestations of love persuades Ann to accept his ring. He cannot help himself boasting to his audience:
"Was ever woman in this humour wooed?
Was ever woman in this humour won?
I'll have her, but I will not keep her long.
Richard is an extreme misogynist, blaming his mother for his deformities. His disdainful treatment of Anne is typical of him. There are however strong female characters in the play who confront Richard or who talk about him amongst themselves. It is the female parts of the play that often end up on the cutting room floor. The women have all suffered by Richards actions either because husbands have been killed or children murdered and it is their challenge to him and their curses against him that start his loosening of the grip of the kingship. Not including this aspect of the play is like not including a piece of the jigsaw.
The fascination and perhaps the difficulty of understanding Richard for a modern audience is that his character is partly based on an earlier trope that appears in morality plays or early Elizabethan theatre. Richard is of course a modern day Machiavellian character in his plotting and his lust for power, but he is also representative of Vice or Punch in morality plays and so he has the power to do and persuade others to do; things that appear a little far fetched for modern audiences. The characters on the stage know what Richard has done and what he is capable of doing and yet they are all susceptible to his charms. It is only Richmond (Henry Tudor) who is immune and who leads the final assault on Richard's crown. Richard is involved in everything, if he is not on stage then plots that he has set in motion are coming to fruition, or enemies are planning to get the better of him, or are talking about him. It is not quite a one man show, but not too far off. Against Richard it is the female characters who are the strongest.
There is not a high body count only two people die on stage: Clarence and Richard himself; the young princes of the tower are murdered off stage, but it is clear that Richard has arranged their deaths. There is no mystery, it is clear what Richard is doing, much of the power of the play is contained in Richards character and his presence and so it is the words, the wit, the language of the performers that holds the audiences attention. Watching the BBC production brought this home to me. It uses many of the same actors from the previous plays in the tetralogy and an amusing piece of casting is that the actors that play Richards two dead brothers and his father reappear as followers of the triumphant Henry Tudor at the end of the play.
The Arden Shakespeare as usual gives a full analysis of the text, as much information as you could possibly want and it has a good introduction that refers on to further reading if necessary. It gives a potted history of the performance of the play up to modern times. The Norton Critical edition gives very little help with the actual text, but is very good on context. For example it gives excerpts from Shakespeares source material and an Example from Colley Cibbers rewritten version. It also includes essays of criticism, which as usual are a mixed bag.
I found the full version of the play overly long, but it is such a powerful play that it is a 5 star read either in the Arden or the Norton edition.
[Norton Critical Editions - Richard III - Shakespeare]
BBC The Tragedy of Richard III - William Shakespeare
I have been steeped in Shakespeares Richard III this week and steep is probably the word because it can seem like a long climb to the end. The play
Show More
that has come down to us from the first folio edition is the second longest of Shakespeare's plays, only Hamlet is longer. The BBC production of the play clocks in at over 3 hours 45 minutes, but don't despair if you are going to see a live theatre production, as there is a good chance that it will have been cut. It has a history of being adapted for the stage, not only for it's length, but also to provide some information on whose who in the play, because it continues on from Shakespeare's Henry VI part III and following the history of the Wars of the Roses is complicated enough without coming in over half way through. From 1700 to the late nineteenth century the version performed would have been a rewrite by Colley Cibber: he incorporated parts of Henry VI part III, inserted some continuity into the text and made considerable cuts to the first folio edition, cutting all extraneous material to the main story of Richards rise and fall. I could appreciate why there could be a need to adapt the first folio edition when I read it through for the first time; certain scenes seem to be overlong and it can be difficult to distinguish the characters and there are references to what had gone on in the previous play.The play remains the most performed of all Shakespeare's histories and that is probably because central to the play is the character of Richard III, probably the most evil genius ever to rule England according to Tudor propaganda and many people going to the theatre like to see a bad guy. Just what sort of evil genius you will see not only depends on the actors but also to the cuts made in the text. Cibber for example cut out Clarence's dream and his pleading with his murderers, the prattle with his children, the dialogue with the citizens, the cursing scene with Margaret and much of the scene with the Duchess of York, the spectres visiting the combatants tents at Bosworth field and much else. There was plenty of the play left, but the audience would not have seen Richard at his cleverest or most wittiest. There is much in the text that could be used to show Richard as a clever rogue, no better or worse than some of the other noble members of the houses of York and Lancaster, but if the aim of the production was to depict a malevolent and evil Machiavellian usurper of the crown then a more straightforward reading is possible, like that of Cibber's
The play opens with Richard's soliloquy and one of the most famous of Shakespeares lines:
"Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York"
A soliloquy is a device for passing confidential information to the audience and Richard not only tells us about his feelings of inadequacy in times of peace, his physical deformities, but also of the plots he has laid to get rid of his brother:
"I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days"
The audience immediately knows where they are with Richard, which is more than the other characters do in the play. Richard plays to the gallery, which if there was not an audience that gallery would be only himself. He immediately convinces his brother Clarence he will do everything he can to get him released from the Tower (prison) and then hires a couple of ruffians to murder him. His finest feat of manipulation however is completed shortly afterwards. He joins the funeral cortege of Henry VI and sets out to seduce the Lady Anne who is mourning her husband Prince Edward who Richard killed at the battle of Tewksbury; Richard also killed her father and Anne also knows he killed Henry VI. Richard stops the cortège to speak to and seduce Ann who starts off by calling him a foul devil and black magician, but Richard's wit, his offer to kill himself and his protestations of love persuades Ann to accept his ring. He cannot help himself boasting to his audience:
"Was ever woman in this humour wooed?
Was ever woman in this humour won?
I'll have her, but I will not keep her long.
Richard is an extreme misogynist, blaming his mother for his deformities. His disdainful treatment of Anne is typical of him. There are however strong female characters in the play who confront Richard or who talk about him amongst themselves. It is the female parts of the play that often end up on the cutting room floor. The women have all suffered by Richards actions either because husbands have been killed or children murdered and it is their challenge to him and their curses against him that start his loosening of the grip of the kingship. Not including this aspect of the play is like not including a piece of the jigsaw.
The fascination and perhaps the difficulty of understanding Richard for a modern audience is that his character is partly based on an earlier trope that appears in morality plays or early Elizabethan theatre. Richard is of course a modern day Machiavellian character in his plotting and his lust for power, but he is also representative of Vice or Punch in morality plays and so he has the power to do and persuade others to do; things that appear a little far fetched for modern audiences. The characters on the stage know what Richard has done and what he is capable of doing and yet they are all susceptible to his charms. It is only Richmond (Henry Tudor) who is immune and who leads the final assault on Richard's crown. Richard is involved in everything, if he is not on stage then plots that he has set in motion are coming to fruition, or enemies are planning to get the better of him, or are talking about him. It is not quite a one man show, but not too far off. Against Richard it is the female characters who are the strongest.
There is not a high body count only two people die on stage: Clarence and Richard himself; the young princes of the tower are murdered off stage, but it is clear that Richard has arranged their deaths. There is no mystery, it is clear what Richard is doing, much of the power of the play is contained in Richards character and his presence and so it is the words, the wit, the language of the performers that holds the audiences attention. Watching the BBC production brought this home to me. It uses many of the same actors from the previous plays in the tetralogy and an amusing piece of casting is that the actors that play Richards two dead brothers and his father reappear as followers of the triumphant Henry Tudor at the end of the play.
The Arden Shakespeare as usual gives a full analysis of the text, as much information as you could possibly want and it has a good introduction that refers on to further reading if necessary. It gives a potted history of the performance of the play up to modern times. The Norton Critical edition gives very little help with the actual text, but is very good on context. For example it gives excerpts from Shakespeares source material and an Example from Colley Cibbers rewritten version. It also includes essays of criticism, which as usual are a mixed bag.
I found the full version of the play overly long, but it is such a powerful play that it is a 5 star read either in the Arden or the Norton edition.
Show Less
LibraryThing member dypaloh
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,
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 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.
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,
Show More
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 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
LibraryThing member Eat_Read_Knit
Great drama, a somewhat... um... flexible attitude to history, and scarcely a character alive by the end. There are the famous lines ("Now is the winter of our discontent"; "A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!") and some that really ought to be more famous ("fair Saint George,/ Inspire us
Show More
with the spleen of fiery dragons!"). Very entertaining. Show Less
LibraryThing member Coach_of_Alva
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
Show More
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 art of cursing. I was also happy to find this production unabridged. Show Less
LibraryThing member stillatim
Am I the only person who thinks Richard is kind of sympathetic? Seriously, *every* other person in the play is a moron. I've never been comfortable with Nietzsche's whole 'the weak gang up to ruin the world by undermining the strong' nonsense, but as an analysis of this book? Pretty good. Look,
As for this edition (most recent Arden), it's got a very well-written introduction that provides a lot of background information; maybe too much background information. I would have liked a bit more interpretation. Same thing with the annotation, which was very heavy on the manuscript-variations but a bit light on historical information. But thankfully no fatuous 'thematic' interpretation stuff at all.
Show More
everyone in this play is morally repulsive. The difference between them and RIII is that the king's much smarter. He moves the pieces around the board pretty well. And for that he's the greatest villain the world has ever seen? I don't get it. As for this edition (most recent Arden), it's got a very well-written introduction that provides a lot of background information; maybe too much background information. I would have liked a bit more interpretation. Same thing with the annotation, which was very heavy on the manuscript-variations but a bit light on historical information. But thankfully no fatuous 'thematic' interpretation stuff at all.
Show Less
LibraryThing member amerynth
It wasn't by design, but I managed to save a great play for my final Shakespare (because apocrypha be damned.) Richard III was one definitely one of my favorites.... great story, great dialog and great pacing, what more could you ask for in a play?
The play tells the story of the nefarious Richard's
This isn't one of Shakespare's subtler works, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The play tells the story of the nefarious Richard's
Show More
rise to the throne and ultimate demise. He's an evil mastermind behind the deaths of kings and princes, and even those who supported his aims fall to his sword. This isn't one of Shakespare's subtler works, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Show Less
LibraryThing member gbill
Shakespeare may have embellished the historical truth a bit when he wrote Richard III, but he certainly knew a good story when he saw it. The War of the Roses between Lancaster and York from 1455-1485 following over 100 hundred years of warfare with France ripped the country apart and led to cruel
Shakespeare wrote the play a little over a hundred years later, around the year 1592, and the quality is impressive given its over 400 years old today. He painted Richard a bit blacker than he actually was, most notably making him the killer of middle brother George (Duke of Clarence), when it was actually Edward who had him drowned in a barrel of wine. In this story the will to power is concentrated into the character of Richard, who gains the throne but only after having done so many evil deeds that he is hated and isolated. His ambition starts with “Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this sun of York” at the outset of the play, and ends with him tormented with a guilty conscience and then killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 after screaming “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!”, thus ushering in Henry VII as the first Tudor king. The tragic irony is that Richard has brought about his own destruction by destroying others.
Quotes; just this one on man’s inhumanity:
Richard: Lady, you know no rules of charity, which renders good for bad, blessings for curses.
Anne: Villain, thou know’st nor law of God nor man. No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.
Richard: But I know none, and therefore am no beast.
Show More
murders on both sides. Many vied for the throne or to be an inch closer to it, and blind ambition was the order of the day from women and men alike. One of the horrifying outcomes was the famous ‘Princes in the tower’, with Richard III imprisoning his older brother Edward IV’s children to take the throne after Edward had died, and then disposing of them. Shakespeare wrote the play a little over a hundred years later, around the year 1592, and the quality is impressive given its over 400 years old today. He painted Richard a bit blacker than he actually was, most notably making him the killer of middle brother George (Duke of Clarence), when it was actually Edward who had him drowned in a barrel of wine. In this story the will to power is concentrated into the character of Richard, who gains the throne but only after having done so many evil deeds that he is hated and isolated. His ambition starts with “Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this sun of York” at the outset of the play, and ends with him tormented with a guilty conscience and then killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 after screaming “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!”, thus ushering in Henry VII as the first Tudor king. The tragic irony is that Richard has brought about his own destruction by destroying others.
Quotes; just this one on man’s inhumanity:
Richard: Lady, you know no rules of charity, which renders good for bad, blessings for curses.
Anne: Villain, thou know’st nor law of God nor man. No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.
Richard: But I know none, and therefore am no beast.
Show Less
LibraryThing member jcbrunner
Richard III, the tragedy about the Yorkist Götterdämmerung, is Shakespeare's second longest play. Laurence Olivier's 1955 film version clocks in at 161 minutes. Ian McKellen's 1995 film abridges Shakespeare's play too much, at 104 minutes. Richard III is anything but boring: Shakespeare piles
Shakespeare endowed Richard with a wicked charm, memorable physical disabilities and a singular connection to the audience that lets one both roots for and against this evil man. Richard's dominance and centrality in the play is also its weakness: the other actors' light only shines for a few lines at a time. The other actors' roles never develop beyond types (grieving mother, opportunists, ...). The performance rests almost completely upon the central actor's misshapen shoulders and the absence of a medieval get-away car.
Show More
murder upon murder at the feet of Richard III, some of which he clearly wasn't remotely responsible for. What is important to remember, though, is that Richard III kills for dynastic and political reasons. While Shakespeare highlights Richard's envy and discontent, the murders are politically necessary to open Richard's path to power. The tragedy not only requires the murders, each murder triggers the next until it is Richard's turn to die.Shakespeare endowed Richard with a wicked charm, memorable physical disabilities and a singular connection to the audience that lets one both roots for and against this evil man. Richard's dominance and centrality in the play is also its weakness: the other actors' light only shines for a few lines at a time. The other actors' roles never develop beyond types (grieving mother, opportunists, ...). The performance rests almost completely upon the central actor's misshapen shoulders and the absence of a medieval get-away car.
Show Less
LibraryThing member the_awesome_opossum
It took awhile to get into Richard III - it's set during/just after the War of the Roses, and there's a lot of politics going on that are pretty obscure now. However, reading it as a tragedy with a touch of modern thriller makes it awesome.
Richard is brother to the sickly king, and a very
Richard is brother to the sickly king, and a very
Show More
respected military officer, but he craves more power and admiration than that. He has to work his way through most of his family and acquaintances though, picking them off one by one, to capture the crown. He's a master of manipulation and psychology, yet throughout the play we see Richard's own psyche and facades crumbling beneath the weight of this single-minded obsession. Wonderful, thrilling play that is completely worth the work to get through Show Less
LibraryThing member AliceAnna
The true tragedy of this piece is that Richard was almost certainly falsely accused of doing away with his nephews. But as theatre, Richard III exudes a charismatic evil. Based on Tudor sources, Shakespeare wrote for the day. And the day required that the Plantagenets be hung out to dry. The
Show More
depiction of Edward IV as a lecherous, over-eating, self-indulgent monarch was probably valid though. An interesting piece of theatre, but I couldn't help but feel sorry for poor Richard. Show Less
LibraryThing member antao
Killing Frenzy: "Richard III" by William Shakespeare, Burton Raffel, Harold Bloom Published 2008.
A typical king;
Killed everybody who got in his way;
A typical fat slob of a king;
Out to get his own greedy needs met;
Uses every individual who crossed his path;
More often than not, slap happy
Seen on numerous occasion dancing amongst the moon lit paths;
Often times his royal trousers would fall to his ankles causing the King to fall face down.
Was Shakespeare’s Richard any different from some of the politicians we all know so well? The only difference is that they're not allowed to get away with it as much, what with the paparazzi and all.
I finished reading this, Richard III, prior to go see him in the theatre. Even in Portuguese I felt as if I’d come under a spell. What marvelous language. Everyone knows this. It’s obvious, but does everyone really know it? It’s different to know than to experience. And I’ve experienced, once again, the glory of his language in this story.
Read on, if you feel so inclined.
A typical king;
Killed everybody who got in his way;
A typical fat slob of a king;
Out to get his own greedy needs met;
Uses every individual who crossed his path;
More often than not, slap happy
Show More
drunk;Seen on numerous occasion dancing amongst the moon lit paths;
Often times his royal trousers would fall to his ankles causing the King to fall face down.
Was Shakespeare’s Richard any different from some of the politicians we all know so well? The only difference is that they're not allowed to get away with it as much, what with the paparazzi and all.
I finished reading this, Richard III, prior to go see him in the theatre. Even in Portuguese I felt as if I’d come under a spell. What marvelous language. Everyone knows this. It’s obvious, but does everyone really know it? It’s different to know than to experience. And I’ve experienced, once again, the glory of his language in this story.
Read on, if you feel so inclined.
Show Less
LibraryThing member wealhtheowwylfing
Despair and die!, spoken by a ten year old, is the highlight of any performance.
LibraryThing member jwhenderson
Shakespeare's history of Richard III reads like a tragedy. Of course the tragic thing is that the hero is so despicable, yet it is hard to dislike him too much, he has such good lines. "Now is the winter of our discontent . . ." the play opens and the reader is swept up by the perfidy and creative
Show More
conniving of Richard. As his plans thicken he seems to be succeeding, only to fail in the end as his apparent allies fail him and turn. Filled with some of the best poetry of the early Shakespeare this play is deservedly one of his most popular creations. Show Less
LibraryThing member kaboomcju
Not a big fan of Shakespeare's history plays. See some of the film and stage adaptations of this play...they're more entertaining.
LibraryThing member briony
I never thought I would enjoy this as much as I did, and the Ian McKellen adaptation of this just makes it even better.
LibraryThing member lyzadanger
My first Shakespeare history: I've been avoiding them for years. I care too much about keeping everything straight: the four characters named Richard, the handful of Edwards, the nobility calling each other by their titles sometimes, their Christian names other times. And then titles will change.
Of course it's better if you just read it as a play. And for that, it still has a profoundly different tone than the tragedies or the comedies. There's a lot of vitriol here. Not a lot of subtlety. Strong female characters. A LOT of characters. Children.
It wasn't my favorite. It wasn't my least favorite. It was more of another notch in my complete-works-of-the-Bard-read stick.
Show More
And I care about the events and the lineages and I manage to get all wound up and muddled and frustrated.Of course it's better if you just read it as a play. And for that, it still has a profoundly different tone than the tragedies or the comedies. There's a lot of vitriol here. Not a lot of subtlety. Strong female characters. A LOT of characters. Children.
It wasn't my favorite. It wasn't my least favorite. It was more of another notch in my complete-works-of-the-Bard-read stick.
Show Less
LibraryThing member libraryhermit
Being a memeber or a royal family in an earlier period is really nasty, because if one of your kinsmen wants to become the king when it's not his turn, all all he has to do is kill all the people who are standing in his way, and then convince all the court to accept him, and then he can start doing
Richard III gets a lot of bad press in this book. I remember reading elsewhere that he was actually not such a bad king. Did he really kill those two boys, the princes? It may not have been so according to the actual history. Worth checking out. But again, real history is important to Shakespeare, but not of prime importance. Drama is more important than actual material truth. Plus I wasn't there, so I know as little about the actual history as anyone else.
Nobody can equal Shakespeare for the quality and the zing in his putdowns. Here is one from Queen Margaret.
O Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog!
Look, when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites,
His venom tooth will rankle to the death:
Have not to do with him, beware of him;
Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him,
And all their ministers attend on him.
I guess this is the end of the War of the Roses, as witness the following line at the end of the last scene:
We will unite the white rose and the red:
Smile heaven upon this fair conjunction,
But of course all of the soldiers and army helpers can only just cringe and wait until the next senseless campaign when they have to leave home and pursue some vain folly of some different king.
Show More
as he pleases, up to a point. It must have been just miserable to be in a court. But it was better than being a commoner in many ways. You could maybe avoid manual labour.Richard III gets a lot of bad press in this book. I remember reading elsewhere that he was actually not such a bad king. Did he really kill those two boys, the princes? It may not have been so according to the actual history. Worth checking out. But again, real history is important to Shakespeare, but not of prime importance. Drama is more important than actual material truth. Plus I wasn't there, so I know as little about the actual history as anyone else.
Nobody can equal Shakespeare for the quality and the zing in his putdowns. Here is one from Queen Margaret.
O Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog!
Look, when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites,
His venom tooth will rankle to the death:
Have not to do with him, beware of him;
Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him,
And all their ministers attend on him.
I guess this is the end of the War of the Roses, as witness the following line at the end of the last scene:
We will unite the white rose and the red:
Smile heaven upon this fair conjunction,
But of course all of the soldiers and army helpers can only just cringe and wait until the next senseless campaign when they have to leave home and pursue some vain folly of some different king.
Show Less
LibraryThing member bookwoman247
I think that almost everyone knows Shakespeare's verson of the story of the monstrous King Richard III, how he plotted the murder of anyone who stood in the way of his gaining the crown of England.
This was certainly not my first encounter with Shakespeare. I've read his work several times before.
I'm embarrassed to admit, that this is also the first time that I've felt the magic of Shakespeare. It's the first time I've been held in the thrall of the power of his words.
I've always enjoyed his work, but I never understood what all the fuss was about. Now I get it.
This was certainly not my first encounter with Shakespeare. I've read his work several times before.
Show More
However, I seem to have missed the history plays, until now.I'm embarrassed to admit, that this is also the first time that I've felt the magic of Shakespeare. It's the first time I've been held in the thrall of the power of his words.
I've always enjoyed his work, but I never understood what all the fuss was about. Now I get it.
Show Less
LibraryThing member KimMR
I've just seen the wonderful Kevin Spacey / Sam Mendes production which opened at the Old Vic this year and is on a world tour. An amazing production and a superlative performance by Spacey.
LibraryThing member thornton37814
Following the deaths of Edward IV and Edward V in 1483, Richard III becomes monarch of England. It is quite a bit into the play before we are introduced to Richard III, but when we are, we see him as a tyrant. What a vivid picture of his wickedness Shakespeare paints! One can't help but wonder if
Show More
the people of England didn't sing, "Ding, dong, the king is dead, the wicked king is dead" when he died a couple of years after assuming the throne. I really think I'd love to see this one performed live. I may have to settle for a movie version, but I really think that live would be preferable. Show Less
LibraryThing member lisapeet
So how geeky is it to have his'n'hers copies of Richard III? Don't answer that. We saw the Brooklyn Academy of Music production with Kevin Spacey last year and both wanted to read it through again first. The play, by the way, was fun -- a big spectacle, kind of like the circus for grownups without
Show More
the animal cruelty. But with plenty of scenery chewing. Anyway, the play is bad ass. But you all knew that. Show Less
LibraryThing member bell7
Richard, Duke of Gloucester, plots to kill brothers and nephews on his way to the throne of England.
I had a tough time organizing my thoughts after reading this play. Richard is such a rich character. He plots and schemes, but he has some fantastic lines and he's very charismatic. I had a tough
I had a tough time organizing my thoughts after reading this play. Richard is such a rich character. He plots and schemes, but he has some fantastic lines and he's very charismatic. I had a tough
Show More
time following all the Henry's and Edward's and such, more so than Shakespeare's audience would have, I'm sure. The plotting portion was much more interesting to me than his inevitable downfall, but I think that's at least in part because of how it reads rather than how it would play out on stage. The lines "sword fight and ____ dies," for example, are so quick that I hardly took it in before it was over. I'm not sure that I would read it again, but I'd definitely watch a film version and read up on my English history to learn more about the historical Richard. Show Less
LibraryThing member DinadansFriend
With the understanding that insulting the ruler's grandfather was a de-earring offense, and that all plays had to be run by the Lord Chamberlain for approval before publication or performance, what do you do? You slag the man the grandfather took the throne from. Safe move, Willy!
And I've always
I keep quoting the play, and have read it....oh, six times from beginning to end.
And I've always
Show More
been a richardian. I'm glad his corpse will at last come out from under the car park and be properly housed.I keep quoting the play, and have read it....oh, six times from beginning to end.
Show Less
LibraryThing member arewenotben
Barbican Theatre, Production by Schaubühne Berlin. Confirmed that this is a towering play, erring towards this being my favourite Shakespeare.
Subjects
Language
Original publication date
Physical description
288 p.; 6.6 inches
ISBN
0451522664 / 9780451522665
Other editions
Richard III by William Shakespeare (Paperback)