Richard III (play)
Richard III is a play by William Shakespeare. It was probably written c. 1592–1594. It is labelled a history in the First Folio, and is usually considered one, but it is sometimes called a tragedy, as in the quarto edition. Richard III concludes Shakespeare's first tetralogy (also containing Henry VI, Part 1, Henry VI, Part 2, and Henry VI, Part 3) and depicts the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of King Richard III of England.[1]
It is the second longest play in the Shakespearean canon and is the longest of the First Folio, whose version of Hamlet, otherwise the longest, is shorter than its quarto counterpart. The play is often abridged for brevity, and peripheral characters removed. In such cases, extra lines are often invented or added from elsewhere to establish the nature of the characters' relationships. A further reason for abridgment is that Shakespeare assumed his audiences' familiarity with his Henry VI plays, frequently referring to these plays.[2]
Themes[edit]
Comedic elements[edit]
Unlike his previous tragedy Titus Andronicus, the play avoids graphic demonstrations of physical violence; only Richard and Clarence are shown being stabbed on-stage, while the rest (the two princes, Hastings, Brackenbury, 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 how Richard's character is known and how Richard tries to appear.
Richard himself also provides some dry remarks in evaluating the situation, as when he plans to marry Queen Elizabeth's daughter: "Murder her brothers, then marry her; Uncertain way of gain ..." Other examples of humour in this play include Clarence's reluctant 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.
Adaptations[edit]
Film[edit]
Basil Rathbone played Richard III in the 1939 Universal horror film Tower of London, which was directed by Rowland V. Lee. The film was later remade by Roger Corman in 1962 with Vincent Price (who had played Clarence in Lee's film) in the lead role. While both films are influenced by the characterisation and structure of Shakespeare's play, neither includes any dialogue from it.
The most famous player of the part in recent times was Laurence Olivier in his 1955 film version. Olivier's film incorporates a few scenes and speeches from Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3 and Cibber's rewrite of Shakespeare's play, but cuts entirely the characters of Queen Margaret and the Duchess of York, and Richard's soliloquy after seeing the ghosts of his victims. Olivier has Richard seduce Lady Anne while mourning over the corpse of her husband rather than her father-in-law as in the play. Olivier's 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 episode of the BBC television comedy Blackadder in part parodies the Olivier film, visually (as in the crown motif), Peter Cook's performance as a benevolent Richard, and by mangling Shakespearean text ("Now is the summer of our sweet content made o'ercast winter by these Tudor clouds ...")
Richard Loncraine's 1995 film, starring Ian McKellen, is set in a fictional fascist England in the 1930s, and based on an earlier highly successful stage production. Only about half the text of the play is used. The first part of his "Now is the winter of our discontent..." soliloquy is a public speech, while the second part is a private monologue. The famous final line of Richard's "A horse, my kingdom for a horse" is spoken when his jeep becomes trapped after backing up into a large pile of rubble.
In 1996, Al Pacino made his directoral debut and played the title role in Looking for Richard, analysing the plot of the play and playing out several scenes from it, as well as conducting a broader examination of Shakespeare's continuing role and relevance in popular culture. Also in 1996, a pristine print of Richard III (1912), starring Frederick Warde in the title role, 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.
In 2002 the story of Richard III was re-told in a movie about gang culture called King Rikki (also known as The Street King).[19]
In 2017, Italian director Roberta Torre realized a musical drama film, inspired by Shakespeare's play, named Bloody Richard.[20]
Television[edit]
The BBC Television Shakespeare version, first broadcast in 1983, starred Ron Cook as Richard.
BBC Two aired a new adaptation of Richard III in 2016 as part of The Hollow Crown series, with Benedict Cumberbatch playing the king. Executive producer Pippa Harris commented, "By filming the Henry VI plays as well as Richard III, we will allow viewers to fully appreciate how such a monstrous tyrant could find his way to power, bringing even more weight and depth to this iconic character."[21]
In culture[edit]
Now is the winter of our discontent[edit]
The 2010 film, The King's Speech, features a scene where the king's speech therapist Lionel Logue, as played by Geoffrey Rush, auditions for the role by reciting the lines, "Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this sun [or son] of York". Shakespeare critic Keith Jones believes that the film in general sets up its main character as a kind of antithesis to Richard III.[22] The same antithesis was noted by conservative commentator Noah Millman.[23]
In the Red Dwarf episode "Marooned", Rimmer objects to Lister's burning of the Complete Works of Shakespeare in an attempt to maintain enough heat to keep him alive. When challenged, Rimmer claims he can quote from it and embarks upon the soliloquy: "Now! ... That's all I can remember. You know! That famous speech from Richard III – 'now, something something something something'."
In the 1967 film Billion Dollar Brain, Harry Palmer is told to use the verse as a code phrase.
John Steinbeck used the opening line for the title of his novel The Winter of Our Discontent.
The phrase "Winter of Discontent" is an expression, popularised by the British media, referring to the winter of 1978–79 in the United Kingdom, during which there were widespread strikes by local authority trade unions demanding larger pay rises for their members.
My kingdom for a horse![edit]
Richard begins act 5, scene 4 by exclaiming "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!" after being knocked from his steed during the climactic battle.[24][25] The phrase illustrates the drama and desperation of his sudden fall from grace and has entered common parlance as such.
In the 1949 Looney Tunes cartoon A Ham in a Role, the dog actor says Catesby and Richard III's lines, "Rescue, fair lord, or else the day is lost! A horse, A horse, My kingdom for a horse!" before being kicked out of the window by a Goofy Gophers-hauled horse.
Noël Coward's 1941 song Could You Please Oblige Us with a Bren Gun? includes a lyric referring to Colonel Montmorency: "He realised his army should be mechanised, of course/ But somewhere inside/ Experience cried/ 'My kingdom for a horse!'"
In the 1993 Mel Brooks film Robin Hood: Men in Tights, the character Robin of Locksley, played by Cary Elwes, says "A horse, my kingdom for a horse!" as he arrives in England in the opening scene.
In E. T. A. Hoffmann's 1816 story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, the Nutcracker shouts in one scene; "A horse – a horse – my kingdom for a horse!"
Other quotations[edit]
The film Being John Malkovich has many Shakespeare allusions, including a scene in which Malkovich is shown rehearsing Richard III's lines "Was ever woman in this humour woo'd? / Was ever woman in this humour won?" where Richard is boasting about using power, lies, and crime to seduce Lady Anne. As Visual Cultures professor Lynn Turner notes, this scene anticipates a parallel scene in which Craig uses deceit to seduce Maxine through Malkovich.[26] Mariangela Tempera has noted that the subservience of Lady Anne in the scene contrasts with the self-assertiveness of the actress playing Lady Anne as she seduces Malkovich offstage.[27]
In Adam Sandler's 2011 film Jack and Jill, Al Pacino reprises his role as Richard III, although the scenes are modified as Pacino interacts with the audience in a heavily comedic way.[28]
In V for Vendetta when V confronts Father Lilliman, he quotes the line "And thus I clothe my naked villany in old odd ends stol'n forth of holy writ, and seem a saint when most I play the devil."
In Freaked, an arrogant movie star who has been transformed into a "hideous mutant freak" makes use of his deformity by performing the opening soliloquy, condensed by a local professor in subtitles for the "culturally illiterate" to the more succinct "I'm ugly. I never get laid." One reviewer mentioned this as the best example of how the film seamlessly moves between highbrow and lowbrow culture.[29]
In The Goodbye Girl, an ambitious actor played by Richard Dreyfuss is forced by his off-Broadway producer to play Richard III as a caricature of a homosexual.[30]
In the 1975 film L'important c'est d'aimer, directed by Andrzej Żuławski, a production of Richard III in French is a mise en abyme for the drama enveloping the characters in the film.
The manga Requiem of the Rose King by Aya Kanno, which began in 2013, is a loose adaptation of the first Shakespearean historical tetralogy. It depicts Richard III as intersex instead of hunchbacked.[31]
The title of the Alistair MacLean film Where Eagles Dare is inspired by Richard's complaint that the "world is grown so bad, that wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch." (Quoted in Act I, Scene III)
Historical inaccuracy[edit]
Shakespeare, and the Tudor chroniclers who influenced him, had an interest in portraying the defeat of the Plantagenet House of York by the House of Tudor as good conquering evil. Loyalty to the new regime required that the last Plantagenet king, Richard III, be depicted as a villain.[34] The historical inaccuracies in the play can be attributed partly to Shakespeare's sources, such as Holinshed's Chronicles,[35] the writings of John Rous, Polydore Vergil and Thomas More, and partly to artistic licence.[36] Some of these inaccuracies are listed below in the order in which they either appear or are referred to in the play.
There is no evidence to suggest that Richard was personally responsible for the death of his wife's first husband, Edward of Westminster (the son of Henry VI), nor that of her father, the Earl of Warwick (and in Henry VI, Part 3 Richard is not portrayed as being responsible for Warwick's death). Richard, then eighteen, took part in the battles in which Edward and Warwick were killed.[37][38] Shakespeare's sources do not identify Richard as being involved in the death of Henry VI, who was probably murdered on the orders of Edward IV.[39] Richard and his wife, Anne Neville, had known each other for a long time before they married, having spent much of their childhood in the same household.[37] Henry VI's widow, Queen Margaret, was not at court in the period covered by this play; she became Edward IV's prisoner and returned to France in 1475.[40] Richard's elder brother, Clarence (George, Duke of Clarence), was not on good terms with Richard,[41] but was imprisoned by Edward IV and was executed for treason in 1478, when Richard was in the North of England, where he continued to live until Edward IV died five years later.[37]
Richard returned from the North to fulfil Edward IV's wish that he rule as Lord Protector.[42] It was the Plantagenet tradition that a future king (in this case Edward V, the elder of the "princes in the tower") would stay in the royal apartments at the Tower of London while awaiting his coronation.[43] No one knows why the "princes in the tower" disappeared or what happened to them. Richard took the throne by an Act of Parliament,[44] on the basis of testimony claiming that Edward IV's marriage to Queen Elizabeth (Elizabeth Woodville) had been bigamous.[45] Contemporary rumours that Richard had murdered his own wife appear baseless;[46] she is thought to have died of tuberculosis. There is no surviving evidence to suggest that he planned to marry his niece, Elizabeth of York, although rumours about this plan did circulate.[46] At the time he was also negotiating a marriage for Elizabeth with a Portuguese prince, Manuel, Duke of Beja (later Manuel I of Portugal).[47]
At the Battle of Bosworth there was no single combat between Richard and Richmond (Henry Tudor).[48] Richard spotted Richmond in his rearguard surrounded by French pikemen and led a cavalry charge against him.[48] Richard was steered away from Richmond by Sir Rhys ap Thomas.[49] The Stanleys (Thomas, Lord Stanley, and his younger brother, Sir William Stanley) entered the fray in support of Richmond when they saw that Richard was vulnerable;[50][51] when he saw this, Richard cried "Treason".[43] Richard fell from his horse after it lost its footing in a marshy area; he was offered a new horse but declined.[48]
The only contemporary reference to Richard having any deformities was the observation that his right shoulder was slightly higher than his left, which is now known to have been caused by his scoliosis of the spine. After the discovery of Richard's remains in 2012 it became clear that he might have been slightly hunched, though the degree and direction of the curvature was not as serious as that of what is now known as spinal kyphosis.[52][53][54]
