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Shakespeare’s plays were grouped into three categories: comedies, tragedies and histories. The histories were those plays based on the lives of English kings. Shakespeare was one of the first writers to write about English history. According to Garber, “before Shakespeare’s time there were few history plays such written in England--- England history was told in verse and prose chronicles (239)”. It’s considered that Richard II is one of the early “historical plays”. The play became so iconic that even Queen Elizabeth said that she was “Richard the second, know ye not that”. Richard II tells the story about a king’s downfall. Richard II is not your average king. He is useless with his power and does not know how to use it. He is the king of England when the play begins but shortly after his kingship is taken away from him. Richard II is a young man who has not matured much since his adolescence. He is disconnected from his land and its people, which becomes one of the downfalls of his crown. He has an extraordinary flair for poetic language. He is witty and poetic personality doesn’t work with his higher calling in life. A king should be strong and fearless. King Richard II is not a man of action and as the play advances, he gets into more and more trouble. As his end approaches, he becomes very poetic. Like most Shakespearean heroes, Richard II has a strong theatrical personality. He likes putting on a show and enjoys a bit of wordplay, even at his own expense. What sets him apart from other Shakespearean characters is the perverse joy he takes in his downfall. There are many tragic events that lead to Richard’s downfall and consequently lost of his crown. The most important one was that he basically didn’t ... ... middle of paper ... ...n moral and royal principles. By the end of this play, it’s clear that Richard has completely questioned the concept of divine right and when he has to shed his crown and turn over England to his enemy, he dramatically states “Throw away respect, Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty; For you have but mistook me all this while. I live with bread like you, feel want, Taste grief, need friends. (3.3.172-76). Just because Richard as a divine right to be the King doesn’t mean that he is the right choice to accomplished the requirement of what it takes to be a great king. Richard was lacking on the will power of a leader. His downfall was his fault in the sense that he couldn’t concentrate to see what he was doing to his region as a ruler. He failed as a leader but at the same time he gain sometime much better than a crown, Richard gain the understanding of who he is.
I feel that Richard gains our sympathy when he resigns the crown, refuses to read the paper that highlights his crimes, and smashes the mirror, which represents his vanity. In terms of kingship, I interpret the play as an exploration between the contrast with aristocratic pride in the law and the king's omnipotent powers. It also shows the chain reaction on kingship as past events in history determine present
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...
Richard III's Usurpation and His Downfall Richards rule was always unstable due to his unlawful usurpation to the throne and his part as far as the public was concerned in the death of the two princes. As a result right from the start he didn't have the trust or support from his country. As soon as he became King people were already plotting against him. After he was crowned he travelled the country trying to raise support by refusing the generous gifts offered to him by various cities. However unknown to him a rebellion was been planned in the South.
To explore connections between texts is to heighten understanding of humanity’s progressing values and the underlying relevant themes that continue to engage societies regardless of context. William Shakespeare’s King Richard III (1592) (RIII) and Al Pacino’s docudrama Looking for Richard (1996) (LFR) demonstrate how opinion is created through comparative study, both explore the struggle for power within differing contexts to determine the duplicity of humanity. Ultimately, despite the divergent eras of composition and textual form, these connections expose the relevant social commentaries of their composers, highlighting innately human values, which remain constant.
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.
Anne is quite like a modern woman in the way that if a man tells her
Richard did not manage to recover from the usurpation of Edward and after allegedly murdering the two Princes in the tower his reputation had fallen greatly. He had lost a lot of respect from nobles and from the populus. Killing the Princes could be seen as one of the major factors of his downfall. It was common place in monarchical families to have brothers and sisters "put out of the picture", but even in these primitive times, the murder of innocent children was a taboo.
But Buckingham knows what to do. He tells Richard to take two priests with him, since the people are very religious and will follow the priest's’ actions. After doing as if he was denying the request for being the king, the crowd tried to persuade him. Because of doing as if he didn’t want the crown, the crowd thought they could trust him more, and begged him to be the king. Eventually he said yes, and finally became king of England. He orders Buckingham to kill prince Edward, but Buckingham refuses to. He asks for his Earlship, but Richard gets mad and dismisses him. He knows he also has to get rid of Buckingham now, since he is not loyal to him anymore. He hires a murderer called Tyrrel to kill the princes and finally he got rid of
Instead of a powerful physical image, like Queen Elizabeth I, Richard implements elegant soliloquies, engages in witty banter, and attunes the audience to his motives with frequent asides. This flexibility demonstrates Richard's thespian superiority and power over the rest of the play's cast, making him a unique character in the play, but why does he do it? This constant battle between characters to claim mastery over a scene leaves the audience with a seemingly overlooked source of power for an actor [clarify/expand].
to behave in the same way as King Richard, and since he is acting this way, the
This contributes to a very villainous role. Richard begins his journey to the throne. He manipulates Lady Anne. into marrying him, even though she knows that he murdered her first. husband.
The task which Shakespeare undertook was to mold the hateful constitution of Richard's Moral; character. Richard had to contend with the prejudices arising from his bodily deformity which was considered an indication of the depravity and wickedness of his nature. Richard's ambitious nature, his elastic intellect, and his want of faith in goodness conspire to produce his tendency to despise and degrade every surrounding being and object, even as his own person. He is never sincere except when he is about to commit a murder.
According to many, Shakespeare intentionally portrays Richard III in ways that would have the world hail him as the ultimate Machiavel. This build up only serves to further the dramatic irony when Richard falls from his throne. The nature of Richard's character is key to discovering the commentary Shakespeare is delivering on the nature of tyrants. By setting up Richard to be seen as the ultimate Machiavel, only to have him utterly destroyed, Shakespeare makes a dramatic commentary on the frailty of tyranny and such men as would aspire to tyrannical rule.
Edward V and his brother so that he could be next in line for the crown. But that is not true for Richard really didn’t do it.
Nevertheless, as a man of action, Bolingbroke has achieved for himself the goal of retrieving his father Gaunt's estates and much more. He, in the end, is king, King Henry IV. And though Richard as king was full of pomp and ceremony, those things were no match for ambition carried to its fullest. His strong words belied incompetence as a ruler, and he could not hold his position. It seems that it was inevitable that Bolingbroke would be the victor at last. Richard should have taken more note of his usurper, before he was such, this man he called "[Gaunt's] bold son" (1.1.3).