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William Shakespeare's Richard III
William Shakespeare’s characterization of Britain’s historical monarch Richard III, formerly Duke of Gloucester, is one of the most controversial in literature. To this day there are arguments upholding Richard III’s villainy and ascertaining his murder of the Princes in the tower, just as there are those who believe that he has been falsely represented by Shakespeare’s play and fight avidly to clear his name of any and all crimes. Because of the uncertainty surrounding his true character, Richard III is an intriguing personality to put into modern culture, which is exactly what Ian McKellen does in his rendition of the infamous ruler. However, McKellen’s portrayal of Richard III preserves the basic personality of Shakespeare’s character and continues the idea of Richard III as tyrant and murderer; there is no doubt that McKellen captures the bestial nature of Richard, but even though this main staple of the play is kept intact, there are other aspects of this adaptation that are not so true to Shakespeare’s vision. Overall, however, I believe that this is an honest modernization of a classic play, and that Shakespeare would have approved of most of the changes made, with only a few exceptions.
The film adaptation of Richard III was relatively straight forward, and certain scenes were more clear on the screen than on the page, but there were several confusing episodes that detracted from an otherwise good rendition of Richard III. Without having read the book first, I feel that a viewer would have been totally lost during the opening scenes of destruction because there are no names given until ten minutes into the film, and even those are dropped rather casually. Because I have read...
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... written play there is no such direction to let the audience know that Anne may not be aware of his full intentions or desires. It is entirely possible that when this play was performed in Shakespeare’s time this is exactly how the actor spoke his lines, but it is not clear one way or the other from the printed page. All in all, the film version of Richard III might be even more terrifying and brutal than the print version, because modern audiences will probably connect more with a visual image of atrocity rather than a purely written one. I believe that this is the power of Shakespeare’s work– it is powerful on paper, but still more powerful in performance. It is performance that lends his work its full potential, and as such the film of Richard III is true to the core argument of Shakespeare’s original text, illustrating the inner beast found in the soul of a man.
Shakespeare’s portrayal of power reflects the conflicting influences of Medieval Morality plays and Renaissance literature during the Tudor period, demonstrating that the text is a reflection of contextual beliefs. The Third Citizen’s submission to a monotheistic deity in the pathetic fallacy of “The water swell before a boisterous storm – but leave it all to God” qualifies the theological determinism of power due to the rise of Calvinism. Pacino embodies Richard’s desire for royalty in LFR through the emphasis on celebrity culture, as he is determined to film himself in close-up, which although emphasizes the importance of Pacino, leaves out the broader scene. Soliloquies are substituted with breaches in the fourth wall, and his metatheatrical aside to the audience “I love the silence… whatever I’m saying, I know Shakespeare said it”, subverts the cultural boundaries which, deter contemporary American actors in performing Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s breach of the iambic pentameter in “Chop off his head…And when I’m king” strengthens the Renaissance influence, as Richa...
Anne is quite like a modern woman in the way that if a man tells her
The Effectiveness of William Shakespeare's Use of Supernatural in the Final Act of Richard III
Shakespeare, William. Richard III. The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1997), 515-600.
Kenneth Branagh creates his own individualistic adaptation of this classic through the use of visual imagery, characterization, and setting. Branagh cut many lines and speeches from the text to better support his interpretation of a more open and informal society of warm-hearted, affectionate characters. Though Shakespeare's mood is more formal, Branagh remains true to the essence of the play as all of the same characters and most of the dialogue are justly included in the film. Although distinct differences can be made between Branagh’s film and Shakespeare’s written work, they both share a common denominator of good old-fashioned entertainment; and in the world of theater, nothing else really matters.
Because this week's annotations were to be focused on the actor's perspective of Shakespeare, I chose to focus my posting on the same topic. First of all, Richard III is on stage longer than any other Bard character. Usually, the time on stage is not a bed of roses either. The actor must limp, wear a hump, or at least hunch over for the duration of the play. This may doom an actor to chiropractic sessions for the rest of their life!
differed in the way they viewed Richard III. This could have been because the writer’s attitudes
Richard III, by William Shakespeare, is a play based on the amount of power and decisiveness needed to become the king of England. The main character Richard of Gloucester is the brother of the current king. The fact that Richard is evil for no apparent reason troubles readers. Yet overtime, the audience begins to warm up to Richard in part because of his skill with words. Richard's obvious skill of language allows him to successfully manipulate nearly every character in the play. This skill enables him to woo Lady Anne, have Clarence thrown in prison, blame the king for Clarence's death, and achieve Hastings's execution, all without any harm to himself. Although Richard's use of words permits him to manipulate and control those around him, it becomes evident that this is Richard's only defense. When the Princes match wits with Richard, they are quickly executed. The default action of the main character, if unable to manipulate, is to kill.
The undeniable pursuit for power is Richard’s flaw as a Vice character. This aspect is demonstrated in Shakespeare’s play King Richard III through the actions Richard portrays in an attempt to take the throne, allowing the audience to perceive this as an abhorrent transgression against the divine order. The deformity of Richards arm and back also symbolically imply a sense of villainy through Shakespeare’s context. In one of Richard’s soliloquies, he states how ‘thus like the formal Vice Iniquity/ I moralize two meanings in one word’. Through the use of immoral jargons, Shakespeare emphasises Richard’s tenacity to attain a sense of power. However, Richard’s personal struggle with power causes him to become paranoid and demanding, as demonstrated through the use of modality ‘I wish’ in ‘I wish the bastards dead’. This act thus becomes heavily discordant to the accepted great chain of being and conveys Richard’s consumption by power.
Shakespeare constructs King Richard III to perform his contextual agenda, or to perpetrate political propaganda in the light of a historical power struggle, mirroring the political concerns of his era through his adaptation and selection of source material. Shakespeare’s influences include Thomas More’s The History of King Richard the Third, both constructing a certain historical perspective of the play. The negative perspective of Richard III’s character is a perpetuation of established Tudor history, where Vergil constructed a history intermixed with Tudor history, and More’s connection to John Morton affected the villainous image of the tyrannous king. This negative image is accentuated through the antithesis of Richards treachery in juxtaposition of Richmond’s devotion, exemplified in the parallelism of ‘God and Saint George! Richmond and victory.’ The need to legitimize Elizabeth’s reign influenced Shakespeare’s portra...
Despite Richard's deformity, Shakespeare presents Richard as an all-powerful master of the stage. Initially, Richard's power appears to know no limits. From the first act, the audience is persuaded that he can merely appear on stage and his will is carried ...
Shakespeare, William. Richard III. The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Greenblatt, Stephen. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. Inc., 1997. 515-596.
In the Shakespeare play Richard III was depicted as a malformed mean, ill looking, tyrant. But this was not the case. Richard
Cohen, Walter, J.E. Howard, K. Eisaman Maus. The Norton Shakespeare. Vol. 2 Stephen Greenblatt, General Editor. New York, London. 2008. ISBN 978-0-393-92991-1
Knight,G.Wilson. “The Shakespearean Superman: An essay on The Tempest.” The Crown of life: Essays in Interpretation of Shakespeare’s Final Plays. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1947. 203-255