Commentary on Shakespeare's Richard III

Wolfgang Clemen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136559365
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Letteratura
• Subtopic: Critica letteraria

First published in 1968. Providing a detailed and rigorous analysis of Richard III, this Commentary reveals every nuance of meaning whilst maintaining a firm grasp on the structure of the play. The result is an outstanding lesson in the methodology of Shakespearian criticism as well as an essential study for students of the early plays of Shakespeare.

Act I

SCENE ONE

General Structure

This first scene – and indeed the whole play – is dominated by the figure of Richard.¹ He opens and closes the scene with a soliloquy, and keeps a constant steering hand on the direction of the dialogue. These two soliloquies make a frame for Richard’s encounters with Clarence and Hastings, which are separated from each other by yet another short monologue. The central episodes (Clarence going to prison and Hastings leaving it) are also similar in content: in both Richard meets a future, unsuspecting victim; in both he dissembles, then explains the purpose of his deceit in the soliloquy that follows. Thus the first scene with its symmetrical construction introduces a technique used in various forms throughout the play and indeed throughout Shakespeare’s early work. In Richard III this symmetry is still very obvious, almost obtrusive; Richard’s twice-repeated show of hypocrisy before two of his future victims has an artificial flavour about it. Yet at the same time, the careful construction of this scene suggests the work of a highly conscious author unwilling to admit any fortuitous element into his plot, preparing well in advance for future developments. Themes and characters introduced here will not remain unutilized in future scenes.

The Opening Soliloquy (1–41)

The great opening soliloquy, delivered in prologue-like fashion by Richard alone on the stage, falls into three distinct parts: in lines 1–13 he surveys the situation; in 14–27 he describes his own appearance and character; and in 28–40 he tells us of his future plans. What is here presented in one speech furnished in pre-Shakespearian drama the subject-matter for three: the prologue revealed the opening situation; the monologue of exposition and self-introduction presented the main character; and the ‘planning monologue’ (the soliloquy in which the speaker announces his future plans) prepared for future events. These three motifs did not normally follow one upon the other. It is something new for one monologue of moderate length to fulfil these three functions.

The soliloquy (and the play) begins in the same tone with which 3 Henry VI had ended. King Edward, in the concluding lines of the earlier play (V, vii, 42 ff.), had spoken of the stately triumphs and the mirthful comic shows in which the court would spend its days now that the Lancastrians had fallen: a season of lasting joy was about to open. And now Richard contrasts this joyful time with the period of war which has just ended. Richard’s opening references to a season of sunny peace — ironic in the light of his later actions — remind the audience that England is actually enjoying an unclouded prospect free from civil and foreign wars. In other plays the opening situation provides grounds for the hero’s subsequent action;¹ but nothing in the external world serves to explain Richard’s aggressive behaviour.² The motive for his actions must be sought solely in his character, his will.

That Richard’s sympathies are in fact for war is emphasized in: ‘this weak piping time of peace’ (24), and in his admission: ‘And hate the idle pleasures of these days’ (31). Lines 10–13 contain a disdainful criticism of the warrior’s unmanly peace-time behaviour (the he in line 12 surely refers to this hypothetical soldier, with a possible hint at Edward IV¹); the choice of the word capers for what the warrior does in a lady’s chamber (12)² underlines Richard’s low opinion of this particular amusement. But, more important, the striking and concrete description following the more conventional lines on the passing of war and coming of peace infuses the passage with movement and vivacity.

These first thirteen lines differ from the usual passages of introductory exposition in sixteenth-century drama³ in that they contain hardly any names or historico-political detail; instead, images of war are juxtaposed with images of peace in an extended contrast. The ponderous chronicling of facts which burdens so many opening scenes is replaced by evocative description incorporating a number of conventional expressions common in Elizabethan drama.⁴ These first thirteen lines, rich in rhetorical devices,⁵ are marked by a stately, ceremonious tone in striking contrast with what follows. The gravità, maestà, and dignità⁶ which, according to Castelvetro, should characterize tragedy, lend their weight to Richard’s opening words. But here style is suited to content; elevated rhetoric appears only where it is appropriate. As soon as the soliloquy takes on a more personal note (14 ff.), the diction too grows more personal; tempo and language adjust themselves to the new tone.¹

And yet a personal note emerges even in these first thirteen lines. When Richard speaks of the ‘glorious summer’ which has been ushered in by ‘this sun of York’, the this (referring to his brother, Edward) has a disparaging ring. In any case, the pun on sun=son (suggested by the Yorkist badge, the sun-in-splendour²) is ironic, for Edward, the sun of York, is fast fading and near death; moreover, Richard lacks belief in both the radiance of this sun and the present glorious summer. It is typical of Richard, too, that these lofty images of sunrise, of summer’s victory, of clouds in the deep bosom of the ocean buried, are evoked not by feelings of contentment, but by dissatisfaction. Thus Richard’s feelings are the opposite of the sentiments seemingly expressed in these resounding opening lines. Nor is the subjective description of the warrior’s antics what we should expect from an impersonal prologue. It has even been suggested that the high rhetoric of the opening lines is Richard’s particular way of mocking the sentiments expressed.³

The second section of the soliloquy opens with Richard’s But I, which stresses his isolation while it detaches him from the our which had linked the earlier lines on conditions at court and in the country.⁴ It also forms a natural bridge (both syntactically and logically) from the more general survey of the situation to the picture he then draws of himself. In pre-Shakespearian drama the various sections of the monologue had usually followed one another without any connecting link.

The seven-fold repetition of the word I in the second section, like the repeated use of our in the first section, lends the pronoun a special emphasis;¹ moreover, four of the I’s occur in the stressed position at the beginning of a line. In the first section the sentences were relatively short, but this section consists of one extended sentence, in which three relative clauses precede the eventual appearance of the verb. The third of these clauses, with its agglomeration of past participles all conveying a negative image of Richard (curtail’d, cheated of feature, deform’d, unfinish’d, scarce half made up), accelerates the pace of the speech and increases the bitterness of tone. For Richard, self-observation is clearly a fascinating activity.

The scornful way in which Richard makes fun of the lover’s rôle² is striking. This particular tone — mocking and sarcastic, indeed spiteful — will make itself felt in many later passages. Here and elsewhere in the play he describes himself as though he were looking in a mirror: he enumerates individual imperfections (19–21) and dramatizes his disabled state in his account of the dogs barking at his approach (22–23). ‘Deform’d’ from birth, he feels ‘cheated’ by nature³ — the same nature that had, as he says in the next scene, endowed Anne’s murdered husband, Edward, with such ‘prodigality’ (I, ii, 243), whereas he himself is later addressed by Margaret as the ‘slave of nature and the son of hell’ (I, iii, 30).

Critics have been rather too ready to treat this second section of the soliloquy as though it were a modern exploration of the psychological roots of Richard’s misanthropic attitude; line 19 (‘Cheated of feature by dissembling nature’) and Richard’s subsequent statements on the reasons for his villainy are interpreted by such psychologically oriented critics somewhat as follows: Richard’s physical deformities, which exclude him from the enjoyment of love, cause him to seek compensation in his villainous undertakings; not Richard himself, therefore, but the twisted body foisted upon him by nature, must be held responsible for his criminal behaviour. In fact, however, the main purpose of these lines is to make clear that the leading character is a villain, and, moreover, that he freely chooses to be a villain (‘I am determined to prove a villain’ 30).¹ His decision leads inevitably to his tragic end. These lines, then, introduce the theme of guilt and expiation that is to pervade the play. In Shakespeare’s main source, Holinshed — More, and in Bacon’s Essay 44² (cited by Wright in his discussion of these lines) an evil disposition is taken to result from a deformed body; but the connection is not seen to be inevitable and does not prohibit the exercise of the free will. These writers do not, then, suggest that a twisted body absolves its owner from the moral responsibility for his evil acts; this is a modern, not an Elizabethan,³ concept. However appealing modern psychological interpretations of Richard’s motivation may be, it is the content of the play itself that proves most helpful in interpre...