Richard III (circa 1592)

My self-assigned summer reading list included a tetrad of Shakespeare histories, all of which come to a head in this famous play.  I’m glad to have finally read it – with Shakespeare, it’s definitely a case of “so many plays, so little time.”  While I don’t find it as astonishingly well-written as my favorites of his, it’s a fine play about a fascinating character.

Reading through of the first 75% of the tetrad, the three Henry VI plays, I was surprised that Richard appears at the end of part 2 and takes a significant supporting role in part 3.  Richard III is so well-known, but I hardly ever hear people mentioning the Henry VI plays, so it’s strange to think of it as a conclusion to a larger story.  But now, having read all four plays in succession, I can’t quite imagine knowing it out of context.  Although it’s clearly the best-written of the four, the play itself exists best in conjunction with the other three.  (It helps to have read the Hollow Crown tetrad as well, written later but set earlier.  There are a handful of references to people and events from these plays that I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.  This is what happens when you’re not up on your medieval English history – you have rely on what Shakespeare tells you.)

Anyway, Richard III is the story of how Richard, the deformed, duplicitous Duke of Gloucester, contrives against those standing between him and the crown, including his older brother and his young nephews.  A self-proclaimed villain, there’s nothing Richard won’t do to advance his aims.  His utter lack of compunction served his family well in the earlier plays, when his House of York wrestled the crown from the House of Lancaster and his oldest brother became king – he gladly got his hands dirty to further the cause of York.  Now, though, that same ambition has turned his own flesh and blood into enemies, and Richard isn’t an enemy you want to have.

It’s interesting to look at Richard from our modern viewpoint.  Where Shakespeare says “villain,” we would probably say “psychopath,” and indeed, many hallmarks of psychopathy are present and specifically acknowledged within his character.  He has no sense of remorse or empathy, and he views people as inconsequential pawns he uses for his purpose.  Though he’s not emotional (in earlier plays, he’s the only one not to weep when members of his family are killed,) he’s skilled at mimicking the requisite feelings and is a master manipulator who plays just about everybody. 

As far as the text goes, it’s rich with excellent lines.  Many of them come from Richard himself:  the dark dramatic irony in his deceptions, the hungry vigor in his soliloquies, and the scathing aspersions hiding under his barely-feigned niceties.  My biggest shock, quote-wise, comes at the very start, in line 1.  I honestly had to laugh when I discovered that “Now is the winter of our discontent” is immediately followed by “…Made glorious summer by this sun of York; / And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house / In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.”  So basically, everything is awesome and everyone who’s ever cribbed this quote is saying the exact opposite of this speech?  Yeah, sounds about right.

Warnings

Lots of heinous acts of villainy, a fair amount of violence (including murder and battle scenes,) and plenty of Elizabethan innuendos.