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Richard III (Wars of the Roses)

3.88 of 5 stars 3.88 · rating details · 17,434 ratings · 526 reviews

Richard III is one of Shakespeare's most popular plays on the stage and has been adapted successfully for film. This new and innovative edition recognizes the play's pre-eminence as a performance work: a perspective that informs every aspect of the editing. Challenging traditional practice, the text is based on the 1597 Quarto which, brings us closest to the play as it wou...more

Paperback, 424 pages

Published May 17th 2001 by Oxford University Press, USA (first published 1592)

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Feb 04, 2012 Elizabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: tam-lin, 2009, in-by-of-england, in-theater, reviewed

The characters of King Richard III are the people who sit around council tables and plot wars. They are the people who bring vials of anthrax into the UN General Assembly to scare people into acceptance. They are the people who pass laws that a woman can be starved by her husband if she "withholds" sex. They are the people who planned and executed Germany's Final Solution. They sit in board rooms and approve plans to pay children $2/day for sweatshop conditions. They give each other huge bonuse...more The characters of King Richard III are the people who sit around council tables and plot wars. They are the people who bring vials of anthrax into the UN General Assembly to scare people into acceptance. They are the people who pass laws that a woman can be starved by her husband if she "withholds" sex. They are the people who planned and executed Germany's Final Solution. They sit in board rooms and approve plans to pay children $2/day for sweatshop conditions. They give each other huge bonuses while doing whatever they can to avoid renegotiating unreasonable loans.

There are two things that define this group (and the characters). The first is that they have the power to do these things. The second is how perfectly normal these people are. Colin Powell, no one thinks of him as inherently evil, and I'm doing anything but suggesting he is. But he was at the table with the vial. The brilliance of this play is how easily it shows the corruption of people in power. How they get caught up in in-fights, power-plays, struggles to come out on top. I'd suggest that it represents every one who goes to work for a big corporation, but I've also seen it in the people who do not, the ones who go off to live in the woods, deliberately. It's just a difference of how much power the person wields. It is the normalcy of this behavior that we are watching in Richard III.

My personal opinion of Richard is that actors overplay him (yes, like the Monty Python sketch). They overplay the hunchback, they add limps, they distort his face with slurring make-up. They take the textual suggestions of ugliness too literally. I think he should be played subtly. Someone who makes you forget the deformity. Someone who attracts you and repels you at the same time. The audience should almost believe that Anne, seduced over her husband's coffin, actually falls for him.

They shouldn't fully believe though. Oh yes, Richard is a villain, who becomes crueler as they play goes on, but making him physically repulsive dilutes the normalcy of his evilness. Other than Anne, there isn't another character to like in here, so I'm indulging. They may say women are fickle but is anyone so fickle that she falls in love across a corpse? She is just as devious as the other characters at some level, which comes out well in this early scene. The others are just terrible, terrible people, each relieved when an enemy is taken away. Each looking for what another character's death will do for him or her.

While I was reading it I kept thinking of the Martin Niemoller quote...first they came for the communists, and he didn't speak up, then they came for the Jews, but he was not a Jew, etc. It's the obliviousness of the characters that is the tragedy of this play. No one does anything because the target is someone he wants taken out. It's someone else who is the problem; I'm safe, until, of course, Richard's ruthless drive for power and paranoia means that no one is else is left and the monster that they created turns on them. Richard wasn't born and raised in isolation. That court created him, nurtured him, and then let him loose with no checks on him.

This is where I think the play falls apart. Power politics is a way of life, especially in the English Court. They'd recently survived Henry VIII, Edward, Jane (for a brief moment), Mary, Elizabeth...these were not kind and generous monarchs who protected the average English denizen from the rampages of the court's politics. Shakespeare's audience (or potential audience) would completely understand the situation on stage. As brilliant (that's the second time I've used that word, I know) as the representation of this mundane wickedness is, someone has to be the savior. Shakespeare needs to reinstate the validity of the monarchy. He needs to justify that one of these repulsive human beings deserves to be king. I much preferred the part where everyone was disgusting. Shakespeare does morally corrupt characters better than anyone else. The seduction to the dark side, the loss of values, the vile acts, the eventual realization, the final despair - totally fantastic. Wrapping it up with one of those questionable characters coming up out on top isn't his strongest ability.

Here I am at the end of the play and I haven't talked about the poetry. There is some in here. It is harder to find than in Hamlet or As You Like It but there are some excellent passages. My favorite women are also in this play. Don't give me simpering, cross-dressing girls pretending to be dead or someone they're not. Give me a woman weighing the political consequence of her actions. The back and forth between Richard and first Anne and then later Queen Elizabeth is really some of the most fun to be had at the theater.

A most enjoyable read, especially after a recent spate of books with totally wishy-washy villains. No one else creates them as Shakespeare does.(less)

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Feb 04, 2013 Paul rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history-will-teach-us-nothing

Here is an excellent and fun archaelogical story. They just found Richard III. He was under a municipal car park. People had been parking their Renault Clios and Ford Fiestas on top of him for years.
Now, we last saw Richard being killed in Shakespeare at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 :

SCENE V. Another part of the field.
Alarum. Enter KING RICHARD III and RICHMOND; they fight. KING RICHARD III is slain.

After that, allegedly, the body was dragged into Leicester (25 miles south of Nottingham...more

32 likes · like · see review

Oct 25, 2009 Madeline rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: shakespeare

Richard III, abridged:

RICHARD: Mwahahaha! Mwahahahahaha! Mwahaha!
CLARENCE: Hey brother! So, I guess I'm being sent to the Tower of London. Sucks, right?
RICHARD: Don't worry, Clarence, you'll be fine. I'll try and get you out, and certainly won't hire assassins to kill you or anything.
CLARENCE: Awesome! You're the best!
RICHARD: Mwahahaha!
ANNE: You killed my husband and my son in the last play, you asshole! I HATE YOU SO MUCH!
RICHARD: I only killed your husband because you're so fucking hot.
A...more

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Feb 12, 2013 Bill Kerwin rated it 4 of 5 stars

I had remembered this play as nothing more than a superb melodrama organized around a charismatic, one-dimensional villain, but I now realize it is much more complex than this.

Richard's deformity is not merely a physical sign of spiritual evil, but also a metaphor for the twisted era of internecine and intra-generational violence of which he himself is the inevitable conclusion. Richard claims that his disability disqualifies him for a peaceful age's love-making, but his effective wooing of Lad...more
I had remembered this play as nothing more than a superb melodrama organized around a charismatic, one-dimensional villain, but I now realize it is much more complex than this.

Richard's deformity is not merely a physical sign of spiritual evil, but also a metaphor for the twisted era of internecine and intra-generational violence of which he himself is the inevitable conclusion. Richard claims that his disability disqualifies him for a peaceful age's love-making, but his effective wooing of Lady Anne--literally over her husband's dead body--belies this claim. No, Richard, who from infancy has known nothing but civil war and betrayal, can only be effective when he is either murdering his Plantagenet relatives or plotting to do so. (Thus, when he finally becomes king, he can neither enjoy the honor nor rise to the challenge, and therefore is soon plagued with nightmares and consigned to destruction.)

Richard fancies himself as the medieval Vice, commenting sardonically to the audience on the action of this play he has devised, heedless of the fact that he is also part of a universal moral design. Richard, who embodies in concentrated form the worst deeds of his time, must be purged so that a new age can be established.

It is here that the women of the play become important, transforming it into Senecan if not Sophoclean tragedy. In periodic choruses, the queens Margaret, Elizabeth and Anne (plus the Duchess of York) mourn their children and others who have been snatched from them by civil war, and call down vengeance on Richard and other murderers. The interesting thing about this chorus, however, is that it is not composed of unified expressions of grief and vengeance, for the woman continually curse and blame each other, each proclaiming her own sorrow as somehow superior to that of the others. Ironically, the age's long history of crimes against mothers deprives even maternal grief of its unity.

I believe this is Shakespeare's first attempt to create tragedy out of the popular drama. The conception of the women's chorus--both a traditional tragic chorus and at the same time something more personal, more ironic--is particularly impressive in this regard. Unfortunately, however, Shakespeare overreached himself here. In execution, the chorus of queens is often whiny and wearying, and slows down the action without sufficiently illuminating it. Nevertheless, it is a great step toward the tragic resonances of the major plays.
(less)

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Feb 05, 2013 Bettie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: published-1602, britain-england, classic, medieval5c-16c, play-dramatisation, poetry, re-read, revenge, war, willsphernalia

Richard III
By: Ian McKellen, et al

To celebrate rescuing him from under the Michelins..

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Mar 27, 2009 Manny rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: why-not-call-it-poetry, life-is-shakespeare

Richard is ugly, and the girls aren't interested. This really sours his attitude. He decides to plunge the country into another ruinous civil war; that'll show the bitches.

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing wor...more

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May 06, 2013 Janebbooks rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recent events have revived the RICHARD III debate.

In September of 2012 archeologists unearthed bones thought to be those of the monarch in a parking lot in Leicester, England. Now is the time to re-read William Shakespeare's 1591 play about a twisted soul who purportedly locked his young nephews in the Tower of London. Did Shakespeare offer a fair accounting of historical record or was the Bard a spin doctor for the House of Tudor that assumed power in 1485?

Twentieth century novels and films ha...more

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Feb 04, 2013 Ken Moten rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: shakespeare-stuff, history-stuff, plays

"Richard:
Sweet prince, the untainted virtue of your years
Hath not yet div'd into the world's deceit:
Nor more can you distinguish of a man
Than of his outward show; which, God He knows,
Seldom or never jumpeth with the heart.
Those uncles which you want were dangerous;
Your grace attended to their sugar'd words
But look'd not on the poison of their hearts:
God keep you from them and from such false friends!" - Act III, scene 1

When seeing and reading this play I was reminded of a particular g...more "Richard:
Sweet prince, the untainted virtue of your years
Hath not yet div'd into the world's deceit:
Nor more can you distinguish of a man
Than of his outward show; which, God He knows,
Seldom or never jumpeth with the heart.
Those uncles which you want were dangerous;
Your grace attended to their sugar'd words
But look'd not on the poison of their hearts:
God keep you from them and from such false friends!" - Act III, scene 1

When seeing and reading this play I was reminded of a particular genre that I am well acquainted with and which this play among other Shakespeare plays seems to play to well. The thing is the genre is not a literary one that I speak of but a movie one...I'm talking about gangster/mafia films.

Richard of Gloucester is Shakespeare's perfect gangster. this movie plays on so many mob tropes that it is astounding to see it any other way. *Now the real Richard York was not like this and when I refer to Rich I am talking solely of the William Shakespeare character, not the historical figure.
In any event I am was amazed at the connection though, I should not be. My first acquaintance with the play was from the 1996 movie Looking for Richard: an examination of Shakespeare in modern times and a behind the scenes look at Al Pachino's production of this play. Now if Al Pachino is known for playing one character type and playing it well-it is the gangster archetype. In truth James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Robert De Niro, Harvey Kietal, and so-on could play the title role perfectly. In the end this character is a gangster and is a very unrepentantly ruthless one. You admire and hate him with every breath he speaks and you are in shock and awe at how effective he is at butchering his way to the top before fate, a horse, and Henry Tudor brought him to justice on Bonsworth Field.

P.S.: An all honesty though, he was evil as all hell and deserved his fate.

P.P.S.: [update: 2/4/2013] It seems the real Richard III has finally been found buried under a parking lot in Leicester, England, UK. "I cannot tell: the world is grown so bad That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch:
Since every Jack became a gentleman,
There's many a gentle person made a Jack." (less)

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Apr 01, 2008 Cheri rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: drama-british

I've been re-reading my Shakespeare. I love this play so much, the language is so rich and lovely. I've also been re-watching all the Shakespeare films, so this is a duel medium review.

I hate, hate, hate the Lawrence Olivier Richard III. Firstly, he adds pieces of monologues from other plays to the opening speech, (a speech which is perfect on it's own). Apparently, it was supposed to be under the guise of making it more understandable, but comes off as awful! Add to that the fact that he doesn'...more I've been re-reading my Shakespeare. I love this play so much, the language is so rich and lovely. I've also been re-watching all the Shakespeare films, so this is a duel medium review.

I hate, hate, hate the Lawrence Olivier Richard III. Firstly, he adds pieces of monologues from other plays to the opening speech, (a speech which is perfect on it's own). Apparently, it was supposed to be under the guise of making it more understandable, but comes off as awful! Add to that the fact that he doesn't seem to adjust his performance for the screen one bit. I have no doubt he was an amazing stage performer, but on film he just makes me gag. The opening speech is nearly incomprehensible - and I know the play! It's all shouting and ACTING. I don't believe for a second that Lady Anne falls for him. I don't believe that anyone wouldn't know that he's a conniving sociopath.

Then I watched Looking for Richard. Al Pacino's documentary filming his work on the play. I love Kevin Klein talking about his first time seeing the play, as well as watching some of the cast tackle the work. But there are obvious flaws - Winona Ryder as Lady Anne - is Al kidding? She's like a lesson in how not to perform Shakespeare. And often he seems to think that no American has ever read Shakespeare at all, much less gone to see it. So, some of the stuff he says is just silly. I'm not sure why he took that tack, considering that anyone who was going to see an obscure documentary about an actor delving into a Shakespearean role, was probably going to be a bit of a nerd. In the end it's a little weird, but mostly fun.

Then there is Ian McKellen's Richard III. I love him, love the film, love his performance. I can't complain about much with this one, only my big two pet peeves with Shakespeare films - 1. crowds laugh during speeches that are not funny - it's like the director just didn't know what to say to the extras. And 2. "stage" faces from some of the actors when they're listening to said speeches. Damnit, can't they just listen? Otherwise... Awesome.

If anyone knows of any other DVD Richard the III's please let me know!(less)

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Apr 21, 2013 Laura rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: audio-books, british-literature, classics, drama, book-and-movie, civil-war, richard-iii, read-2013

From BBC Radio 3 - Drama on 3:
A production of one of Shakespeare's most popular plays featuring his most charismatic villain.

Douglas Henshall stars as Shakespeare's villain. With original music by David Pickvance.

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Feb 07, 2009 Rufusgermanicus Meelberg rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Absolutely brilliant. It might bade fair to replace MacBeth or Lear in my favorite spots of Shakespeare. To give you an idea, this edition with it's notes was helpful for a few things, but those who read Shakespeare frequently know most of the more archaic or anachronistic words to understand the text. There is some of those words here, but it's a much simpler play in terms of language than some of this others. And some of the passages are strikingly bald and straightforward, such as when Richar...more

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Apr 28, 2013 Angus Mcfarlane rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: classic

The recent discovery of Richard III's bones under a parking lot inspired me to read the Shakespeare version of his life, having not read any Shakespeare since high school. Richard is not portrayed with the slightest sympathy and is largely hated by friends and foe, in both their life and their death. There is probably reason to believe he was an unpleasant character, however, the hunched back (that poisonous bunchback'd toad), short reign and whatever political allegiance his family was inferred...more

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Mar 22, 2013 Ben rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: english-lit, plays, historical-fiction

As a play, The Life and Death of Richard III shocks audiences with Richard's abhorrent and frightening exhibition of evil. As a conclusion to the first tetralogy, it dazzles the mind.

Richard III kills without remorse, his plots cunningly slither through the royal community and construct a political and psychological power around the feeble hunchback. But most importantly, he strikes fear in others because he forges his path by his own rules. He embodies the very antithesis to Henry VI's guiding...more As a play, The Life and Death of Richard III shocks audiences with Richard's abhorrent and frightening exhibition of evil. As a conclusion to the first tetralogy, it dazzles the mind.

Richard III kills without remorse, his plots cunningly slither through the royal community and construct a political and psychological power around the feeble hunchback. But most importantly, he strikes fear in others because he forges his path by his own rules. He embodies the very antithesis to Henry VI's guiding piety and idealism. Richard consults no ideals other than the image of himself on the throne. No honor or nobility shapes his mind in order to provide peace for those who must trust him. He chooses to live as a rogue unto humanity, embracing his physical form as the shape of his character, and isolates himself in the process.

This isolation and ignoble defiance of virtue cultivates the base fear of dictatorship and tyranny. Shakespeare uses Richard to ellaborate on the cause of that fear and the characteristics of those who instill it. His hunchback does not frighten us, most of the characters disrespected it, even his ambition does not frighten us - at least not as much as the ambition of others. His lack of roots, his failure to believe in anything other than himself, fosters a true fear in people because they cannot trust him or predict his actions. Richard has no nature, no character, other than shameless and pitiless greed and ambition.

I noticed the women, the Duchess of York, Queen Elizabeth and Queen Margaret. As they dwelled outside of the action, offering curses and contemptuous words rivaling any passionate disdain offered by sorrowful women, they exhibit a certian unity because of Richard's actions. These women unite under the banner of like suffering from Richard. Queen Margaret curses the house of York, and it seemed that Richard personified that curse, while Queen Elizabeth and the Duchess of York endured all loss and the most primal and fundamental heartache. Because of this, they found common ground with one another.

Furthermore, as Richard plagues the country with his brutality he isolates himself from friend and foe alike. The two feuding houses now have a common enemy because Richard attacks them both. In his speech in Act IV, he contemplates this isolation and argues internally over how he can condemn himself, run from himself or expect love or support from others. Richard presents himself as an enemy to all and therefore all houses find cause to unite against him.

As Shakespeare guides his audience down into the most repulsive degradations of political evil, he unexpectedly shapes it as a light bleeding into the cave. When divisions begin with Henry VI Part 1, we witness a steady decline toward embittered civil strife which naturally climaxes into the form of one man who undertakes every evil unto himself only to present the people the way to peace and unity. Richard seats himself at the furthest extreme of the pendulum's arc and lets the weight swing back away from him.

I must admit I did not like the ending very much. For Shakespeare to literally present the ghosts of Richard's victims seems tasteless and to finish the play with Richmond's Diney-esque speech about unity strikes me as overly romantic. But though the presentation did not suit me, the idea stands the test of criticism. In the spirit of tasteless romance, I will end with a growing cliche: The night is darkest before the dawn. (less)

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Aug 28, 2012 Tfrances rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: classics

Play

History or tragedy? Even Wikipedia doesn't know. I am going to all it a history. While there are definitely tragic elements, we aren't supposed to identify with Richard. The villainous villain of all of Shakespeare... and he's the main character. I can not get over it! He does have the most amazing monologues throughout the play. Shakespeare is known for his monologues, but these are over the top. I especially love the scene on the battlefield after the ghosts have visited Richard. Oh how th...more

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Jun 27, 2012 Jack rated it 4 of 5 stars

"Richard III," the culmination of Shakespeare's first historical tetralogy, is the direct sequel to "3 Henry VI" but is often performed and studied in isolation, both because it is so much better than the three preceding plays and because it is so peculiarly popular that its relation to them has been somewhat obscured in general perception of Shakespeare's work. In the "Henry VI" plays, the demands of the history genre always seem to set limits on Shakespeare's imaginative freedom, limits only r...more "Richard III," the culmination of Shakespeare's first historical tetralogy, is the direct sequel to "3 Henry VI" but is often performed and studied in isolation, both because it is so much better than the three preceding plays and because it is so peculiarly popular that its relation to them has been somewhat obscured in general perception of Shakespeare's work. In the "Henry VI" plays, the demands of the history genre always seem to set limits on Shakespeare's imaginative freedom, limits only ruptured when Richard of Gloucester delivers his astonishing, zestful declaration of ambitions midway through "3 Henry VI." "Richard III" delivers on all of that scene's promises by both Richard and Shakespeare, in an account of Richard's rise and fall which defies the constraints of historical narrative. Shakespeare's treatment of history is not so subtle as in the two parts of "Henry IV," which set Falstaff in fatal conflict with the genre itself. Rather, Shakespeare sweeps aside the weaknesses of his previous histories by simply subordinating narrative to personality, centering obsessively on the character of Richard to invent the most expansive and forceful fictional personality that he had yet achieved at this early stage of his career. Shakespeare's Richard is not merely an usurper, but monstrously, irredeemably evil. He is also, despite his deformity, intensely charismatic, both to the characters surrounding him and, more importantly, to the reader/audience. Shakespeare, whose art was never constrained by categories of morality, creates in the zestfully vile Richard his first embodiment of theatrical power itself. Without exception, Shakespeare's greatest characters, from Richard through Prospero, are those who remind us of, in Borges' words, "the fundamental identity of existing, dreaming, and performing." Shapeshifters, crossdressers, hypocrites, verbal contortionists, clowns, improvisers - in a word, performers - the great Shakespearean figures revel in multiplicity of identity. They are manifestations of the power of theatrical illusion. Both Viola and Iago, the most benign and most malevolent of Shakespeare's creations, declare "I am not what I am," and this is as true of Richard as it is of them, or of Shakespeare, the actor/playwright who encompassed hundreds of identities without leaving us any trace of his own.

Richard is the earliest figure to whom we can apply Hegel's invaluable statement that Shakespeare's great characters are "free artists of themselves." None of the previous histories contains such an extravagantly theatrical being. Richard is many things to many different people, the first of the characters in Shakespeare who seems to invent identities from scratch, and unique among them because he seems ultimately so empty. Where Falstaff is an infinitude of inner being, Richard has no self except for those he presents to the world; even his wicked nature is a pose which he resolves to assume in his soliloquies, likening himself explicitly to the Vice and Machiavel characters, stock theatrical villains. When, in Act 5, he finally attempts introspection, critics have found fault with the crudeness of Richard's poetry, ("What do I fear? Myself? There's none else by. / Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I. / Is there a murderer here? No. Yes, I am. / Then fly! What, from myself? Great reason. Why?"), but I think that his flailing, fragmented language, which sounds like absolutely nothing else in any Shakespeare play that I've read, creates a startling and remarkable moment, an emptying out of consciousness which uniquely implies the hollowness rather than the transcendency of theatrical illusion. Shakespeare created more sophisticated minds and more powerful performers shortly after "Richard III," but the play's representation of its central figure as a succession of masks - and an unusually entertaining and seductively vile one - makes this play an enormous leap beyond the three parts of "Henry VI."(less)

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Feb 04, 2012 Esdaile rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: i-own-it, overrated-books, renaissance-drama, theatre, politically-committed

I think that if I were asked to name the Shakespeare play which I least enjoyed, I would name this one. It is a piece of propaganda from beginning to end. It is not worthy of comparison with Shakespeare's
far superior Richard II, whether in terms of poetry, psychology or dramatic quality. This is not to say that there are not memorable elements to the play, foremost of course, the opening solilloquoy, the epitome of the characteristic in English literature to create caricature and paint it up as...more

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Jul 22, 2011 David Sarkies rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: tragedy

This is one of Shakespeare's earlier tragedies though it is considered more of a history than a tragedy. A history it might be, but it can be argued that it is not an accurate history, but rather a piece of propaganda that was designed to cement the power of the current Tudor dynasty (not that Elizabeth I needed anything to cement her power).
The play is set in the closing years of the Wars of the Roses. This was a civil war in England between two noble houses, Lancaster and York, and rulership...more This is one of Shakespeare's earlier tragedies though it is considered more of a history than a tragedy. A history it might be, but it can be argued that it is not an accurate history, but rather a piece of propaganda that was designed to cement the power of the current Tudor dynasty (not that Elizabeth I needed anything to cement her power).
The play is set in the closing years of the Wars of the Roses. This was a civil war in England between two noble houses, Lancaster and York, and rulership of the realm shifted between both of them during the period. Richard was not an illegitimate ruler since his brother Edward did name him as Lord Protector, but that was because he intended his eldest child would inherit the throne. However when his children disappeared in the Tower of London, that obviously was not going to happen.
It has been argued, and I tend to agree, that the purpose of this play was to demonise Richard of Gloucester, turning him into an usurper and a tryant as opposed to simply an ambitious ruler. There is no evidence that he actually murdered Edward's children (other than this play of course, but the play was produced 100 years after the events in which it depicts).
The play tracks the course of Richard ascension to the throne, and then his descent into tyranny, and finally his defeat at the Battle of Bodsworth field, which brought an end to the war and secured the Tudor dynasty on the throne. However, despite the propaganderous nature of this play, in those days legitimacy was still, even in a civilised country like England (to the extent that one could be call England civilised) determine by the relative power of the ruler. He who had the strongest forces ended up being the one entitled to rule. This is clear when Richard was defeated as Henry ascended the throne and from his loins came the Tudor dynasty (which lasted about 100 years).
It is also interesting to note that unlike the English civil war, which was a war between the protestants and the Catholics, as well as a war between the parliamentarians and the monarchists, this was a classic medieval civil war where two royal houses strove for dominance. It is not surprising that this war broke out because it occurred immediately on the heels of the unsuccessful Hundred Years War where England attempted to conquer France and failed. It is not surprising that this happened as defeat in a war generally signals weakness in a ruler, and when a ruler is seen to be weak, then his authority will be challenged. Another aspect of this period is England moving from the medieval world into the modern world as, after this period, England was stable, politically at least, until the outbreak of the civil war, though during that period we see the split from the Catholic Church (another sign of the country's movement into the modern world), and the development of a very strong literary culture.(less)

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Jul 07, 2011 Libby rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: unforgettable, fun-with-the-middle-ages, wars-of-the-roses

This single play causes more conflict in me than all the other works of Shakespeare together. This play has it all when considered as drama. Aristotle said drama should inspire terror and pity and this one does that so thoroughly. It goes right to the heart of bitter envy, of loneliness, of pain, all curdling in the juices of family and turning to hatred and revenge. The action builds ominously and the dialog is---well---Shakespearian. The lines roll out so beautifully that sometimes I lose the...more

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Oct 09, 2010 Nikki rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: plays, for-class, classics

(My first book finished during the readathon!)

I don't like reading plays, really. I much prefer to see them performed -- they make much more sense when you do. And I'm not really a fan of Shakespeare: either he's too modern for me or not modern enough (my interest peters out shortly after Malory, ish, and doesn't revive until it starts to struggle back to life with Austen -- and even then...). No doubt some of you are just itching to say (probably not the first time) that I must be a pretty crap...more

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Aug 03, 2010 notgettingenough rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: drama

I hate you Al Pacino. Hate, hate, hate. You aren’t just the summer of my discontent, you are all four seasons and then some. Oh, and I take back anything I might have said about marrying you if you stop doing Martin Scorsese movies.

You do this movie, Al Pacino, Looking for Richard. This insidious movie that draws you in, entices you, sucks you into the idea that you gotta, gotta, gotta see Al Pacino doing Richard III, Al Pacino and his American mates have done just the best Richard III ever, and...more

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Mar 07, 2010 Steven Peterson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Great tragedy, probably not such great history. This is Shakespeare's play about the villainous Richard III. It shows his vaulting ambition to become king and demonstrates the steps that he takes to ensure that, such as the death of his brother the Duke of Clarence and the murder of his cousing, the sons of his brother, Edward IV. His dismissive view of his wife, Anne Neville, too, is a part of his character.

His moves to consolidate his power, though, produce unrest. The play ends with his shout...more

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Jan 02, 2010 Liquidiamonds rated it 5 of 5 stars

Richard or Gloucester (not to be confused with Lear's Gloucester) announces that "Now is the Winter of our discontent" (I, i, 1) and we all watch and read - stunned - as he discusses with his audience who he is, what he has done, and what he plans to do: murder, dissemble, get the throne of England...and we go along for the ride, just to be let down in the denouement of Act V...so why read it? 1) it is a study of the Tudor Myth (remember, the House of Tudor was not in line for succession, so wha...more

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Oct 20, 2009 Bruce rated it 5 of 5 stars

How enjoyable it is to return to a Shakespeare play and re-experience it after long absence. So many lines are familiar, yet always seem fresh. At the beginning of his historical plays, I always struggle a bit to figure out who the characters are and what their relationships are to each other, but once that becomes clear, it’s clear sailing. In this case, one wonders why Richard is so malignant? It seems unlikely to be simply the result of his physical deformities and the rejection that he may h...more How enjoyable it is to return to a Shakespeare play and re-experience it after long absence. So many lines are familiar, yet always seem fresh. At the beginning of his historical plays, I always struggle a bit to figure out who the characters are and what their relationships are to each other, but once that becomes clear, it’s clear sailing. In this case, one wonders why Richard is so malignant? It seems unlikely to be simply the result of his physical deformities and the rejection that he may have experienced because of them, but maybe that is an important part of the answer. Some people seem malignant by temperament, whatever that means; I guess I think of that as inherent and not the result of experience, but maybe that is unfair and inaccurate. Richard’s motivations are clear from the beginning, his desire to be king clearly stated; his dissembling and unctuous hypocrisy permeate all his relationships and set the tone of the play. How does he differ from, say, Iago? The latter’s vileness seems more motiveless, although he does seem to indicate jealousy as part of his reason for hating Othello; but he has no apparent goal other than Othello’s destruction. Richard, at least, has a specific goal in mind that he sees as being to his benefit.

Given Richard’s endless plots and duplicity, why do his allies, eg Buckingham, think that they themselves will not at last fall victim to his ambition and caprices? History suggests that such almost always happens, and such concerns would seem inevitably to arise. Is the lure of being close to power so seductive? Do men always think that they will be the exception to the rule? Or is there truly honor among thieves? Apparently not, for Buckingham eventually falls at Richard’s hand. And, as one by one his supporters desert him, Richard is progressively isolated by both his policies and his own paranoia, finally coming to an ignominious end, defeated and slain by Richmond, who ascends the throne as Henry VI.

It is impossible not to be equally moved each time I read this magnificent play.
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Sep 07, 2009 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Writers, directors, actors, theatergoers

Shelves: classics, drama

This portrayal of the history's greatest villain (however historically inaccurate) remains my personal favorite Shakespeare play. Richard is the model upon which later villains, such as Darth Vader and the demonized media variety of Adolf Hitler are based. His reveling in evil is constantly entertaining and effective. The story lacks an interesting hero, which gives Richard all the more time to plot, rave, smooth, cog, and kill. He manipulates his way to the throne, and then is soon undone by th...more

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Jan 25, 2013 Clementine rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: school, 2013

My biggest issue with Richard III is that it's so damn hard to follow, what with all the related characters who have names and then titles that are used interchangeably. It took me a lot longer to get through than Taming of the Shrew, because I had to constantly force myself to slow down so I could understand everything that was going on.

I really do tend to like the tragedies more, but perhaps because I found that it wasn't easily followed, I was not the biggest fan of Richard III. I didn't hate...more

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Jan 02, 2011 Marija rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, drama, medieval-renaissance

For me, this play will forever be associated with Neil Simon’s The Goodbye Girl and Richard Dreyfuss’ exaggerated effeminate portrayal of Richard III in that off-off-Broadway production of Shakespeare’s play.

But now having finally read Shakespeare’s play, I think I know where Dickens got his inspiration for his character, Uriah Heep in the book David Copperfield. Richard reminds me so much of Heep, with his outward acts of modesty and humble nature displaying no interest in furthering his curren...more

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Apr 29, 2013 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: classics

I've always had an interest in Richard III, and particularly in the murder of his nephews. But it was the discovery of his body under a parking lot that really got me interested in the man himself. I've read a couple of biographies, and they all said that Richard didn't acquire his sinister reputation until Shakespeare wrote his play, "Richard III". I wondered how a play could poison a mans reputation for hundreds of years, so I decided to read it myself.

The idea of reading a play made me a lit...more

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Nov 19, 2012 Samantha rated it 4 of 5 stars

I have been avoiding reading Shakespeare's Richard III for some time now. I did not want to have this villianized picture of him in my mind, no matter how popular. Preferring the Richard who is loyal, brilliant, loving, and tragic, I kept myself from this portrayal. Maybe neither extreme is completely true, and I quickly discovered that Shakespeare's beautiful dialog makes up for the atrocious level of historical accuracy. I will not delve into the historical missteps. If you know Plantagenet hi...more

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Mar 13, 2010 Wendy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audio, drama

Many years ago, I attempted to read Richard III, and never got very far. I largely blame my unfamiliarity at the time with English history, but I also have to admit that it really helps to hear this play performed.

Shakespeare's Richard is one of the great anti-heroes of English literature, and it's very enjoyable to watch him in action and marvel at everything he gets away with. (And to see him get his comeuppance, although I personally find that Richard's actual downfall drags a bit in compari...more

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Jan 23, 2009 Ikonopeiston rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ricardian, kindle

It has been a long time since I read this play and I had forgotten how backwards Shakespeare got the facts - for dramatic purposes or political, I do not know. Clarence as the poor innocent loyal lamb!!

Those who criticize the Ricardians for nearly deifying Richard should take a closer look at how More and Shakespeare, amongst other, handled the sons of Edward IV. Never have two young boys been more dazzlingly good and beautiful, meek and Christ-like. Bah!

I was unable to recognize any of the fem...more

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About William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "The Bard"). His surviving works consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been tr...more William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "The Bard"). His surviving works consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language, and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. Scholars believe that he died on his fifty-second birthday, coinciding with St George’s Day. It is an interesting idea that English writer is so closely identified with the Patron Saint of England!

At the age of 18 he married Anne Hathaway, who bore him three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592 he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of the playing company the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.

Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1590 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the sixteenth century. Next he wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest examples in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime, and in 1623, two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's.

Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the nineteenth century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians hero-worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called "bardolatry". In the twentieth century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are consistently performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world.

According to historians, Shakespeare write 37 plays and 154 sonnets throughout the span of his life. Shakespeare's writing average was 1.5 plays a year since he first started writing in 1589. There have been plays and sonnets contributed to Shakespeare that were not authentically written by the great master of language and literature.
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Quotes from Richard III

“Dispute not with her: she is lunatic.” — 1,057 people liked it

“So wise so young, they say, do never live long.” — 219 people liked it

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