Richard III (play)

The Tragedy of Richard III is a play by William Shakespeare, in which the monarch Richard III of England is unflatteringly depicted.

Depiction of Richard

Shakespeare's depiction of Richard and his "reign of terror" is unflattering, and modern historians find it a distortion of historical truth. Shakespeare's "history" plays were not, of course, intended to be historically accurate, but were designed for entertainment. As with Macbeth, Richard's supposed villainy is depicted as extreme in order to achieve maximum dramatic effect. In addition, many previous writers had depicted Richard as a villain, and Shakespeare was thus following tradition.

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Nevertheless, it is important to question why this particular king became a symbol of villainy during the Elizabethan period. Critics have argued that this dark depiction of Richard developed because the ruling monarch of Shakespeare's time, Elizabeth I, was a descendant of Henry VII of England the Lancastrian Earl of Richmond, who had defeated the last Yorkist king and started the Tudor dynasty, and Shakespeare's play thus presents the version of Richard that the ruling family would have wanted to see.

Related Topics:
Elizabethan period - Elizabeth I - Henry VII of England - Tudor dynasty

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Shakespeare's main source for his play was the chronicle of Raphael Holinshed but it also seems likely that he drew on the work of Sir Thomas More author of the unfinished 'History of King Richard III' published by John Rastell after More's death. Rastell, More's brother-in-law, compiled the text from two work-in-progress manuscripts, one in English and one in Latin in different stages of composition. More's work is not a history in the modern sense. It is a highly coloured and literary account which contains accurate and invented details in (arguably) roughly equal portions. More had many sources available for his account (most of whom, like his patron Cardinal John Morton, were extremely hostile to the old regime) but like Shakespeare his main source is his own imagination: over a third of the text consists of invented speeches.

Related Topics:
Raphael Holinshed - Thomas More - John Rastell - Latin - John Morton

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Richard III is the culmination of the cycle of "Wars of the Roses" plays. In Henry VI Part III, Shakespeare had already begun the process of building Richard's character into that of a villain, even though he could not possibly have been involved in some of the events depicted. He participates in battles in which historically he would still have been a boy. From an overview of the cycle, it can be seen that Shakespeare's inaccuracy works both ways.

Related Topics:
Wars of the Roses - Henry VI Part III

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