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Richard The Third: A Study in Shakespeare's Composition
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Richard the third has long been one of the most popular of Shakespeare's plays. In its own day six quarto editions appeared before the Folio, and two more quartos before 1635. While our record of its early history in the theatre is not so clear as that of its printing, numerous contemporary references testify to its popularity. In the later seventeenth century it temporarily disappeared from the stage, but in July, 1700, it was revived with certain changes by Colley Cibber, and was later played by Garrick, Kemble, Kean, J. B. Booth, Edwin Booth, Macready, Sir Henry Irving, Richard Mansfield, and John Barrymore. No one to-day would acclaim Richard as a great tragedy rather than a melodrama, but historically it has probably led all other dramas of Shakespeare in frequency of presentation, and is still an effective stage play. Critics generally unite in dating its composition about 1593, two or three years before Romeo and Juliet. In this paper I propose to analyze anew certain aspects of its relation to its source material, and to show that its composition resembles that of Romeo. Thereby it is possible, I believe, to learn something about Shakespeare's method of writing at least two earlier plays.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1945
References
1 Extant quartos are dated 1597, 1598, 1602, 1605, 1612, 1622, 1629, 1634. For further details see Alice I. P. Wood, Stage History of Shakespeare's King Richard the Third (New York, 1909).
2 See a similar study of the Romeo in University of Texas Studies in English (1929) pp. 86 ff.
3 Throughout this paper I am following the text of the Kittredge one-volume Shakespeare (Boston, 1936).
4 G. B. Churchill, “Richard III Up to Shakespeare,” Palæstra (Berlin, 1900).
5 Some historians state that Anne was not actually married to Prince Edward, but merely promised. Holinshed states positively that the marriage took place.
6 In his doctoral thesis on Shakespeare's debt to Holinshed (University of Texas, 1937), a study that has been of constant use to me in preparing this paper, though the conclusions here are my own.
7 Compare C. A. Greer on the relation of Richard III to certain other plays, Studies in Philology, xxix (1932) 543-550.
8 “Richard III, Act i, Scene 4,” PMLA, xxvii (1912), 117-141.
9 This sentence explains the First Murderer's remark as he stabs Clarence (i.iv.275-276): “Take that! and that! if all this will not do, I'll drown you in the malmsey-butt within.” It likewise clarifies the speech of the Ghost of Clarence in v.iii.133: “I that was washed to death with fulsome wine.” Evidently the stab was not fatal,—if we are to take the Ghost's word.
10 Selected Plays of Shakespeare (New York, c. 1937), iii, 41n.
11 White, Shakespeare's Works (Boston, 1863), viii, 280.
12 Holinshed, op. cit., iii, 357.
13 In connection with the death of the Princes, Shakespeare does not even mention Brakenbury's name, though Holinshed reports that Richard broached the matter to him, and Brakenbury replied that he would never put the Princes to death. As Dr. Fletcher points out, Shakespeare has transferred Brakenbury's action to Buckingham and so motivated the breach between Richard and that Duke.