Shakespeare Fans discussion
Figures Richard Shows Up In The Winter Of Our Discontent!!!
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This would be a good place to ask for opinions about the historical Richard vs the Shakespearian Richard. I love the play and think Richard's character as a villain is absolutely marvelous, but the only resemblance to the historical Richard is his name.
I don't believe Richard murdered the princes in the Tower. I have a harder time with his declaring his brother's marriage invalid after 20 years. While he had to be ruthless at times, overall I think he was decent man and would have made a decent king had his reign been longer.
Susan, why do you disbelieve that Richard murdered the princes? I actually think he was far from a decent man.However, it is accepted among many that Shakespeare's play is basically Elizabethan propaganda.
I am persuaded by arguments that it wasn't in his best interest to have the children disappear. If he wanted them out of the way to secure his hold on the throne (which wasn't necessary since they had already been declared illegitimate), their deaths would have been publicly proclaimed, their bodies displayed, with grief and lamentation that the poor dears succombed to a fever, or some such (like Edward IV did with Henry VI - saying he "died of grief" while in the Tower). To just lose track of them certainly did not serve his interests. Josephine Tey, in her novel Daugher of Time, claims that they were alive at the time of Bosworth and were murdered by Henry VII, but I am more inclined to accept Sharon Kay Penman's argument that they were done in by Buckingham, who hoped to strengthen his own long-shot claim to the throne.
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Lets think for a second that maybe he didnt kill the boys, that he wasn't a sadist with women...lets pretend thats not true...
His bones show that he had seriously offended people, the wounds sow that he had humiliated people, and hurt them so deeply that he had the tables turned on him in his death. . He did something. He did something that the people in battle knew about and acted out with his body...representing and standing up for Richards victims.
victimes of what might be the part we could argue about...but a grudge match like his corpse represents is a kind of evidence.
Candy! What about the AWTEW thread you started? It needs nurturing, and will not grow by itself. And here you are obsessing over Richard III. How different S Fans was in the early days!Just kidding ....
Susan and K continue a debate that has been going on in England since at least 1768, when Horace Walpole published his "Historic Doubts ...", see
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17...
This book is still a great read.
S himself, in Richard III was not creating propaganda, but following his own sources very closely. See my review of More's History,
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33...
Anyway, now to amaze you all. I am from Leicester, and went to Alderman Newton's Boys School, Leiceter, from 1955 to 1963. (Like Shakespeare, I went to a Grammar School in the English Midlands.) You can find it on Google maps: The school is between Guildhall Lane and Peacock Lane and is just next to the Cathedral. Every day I walked along St Martins and Peacock Lane to get to school, and the school playground was on the other side of some railings along Peacock Lane. The Council Offices under which Richard was buried front on Peacock Lane on the other side of the road, so almost every day between ages 11 and 18 I got about as close to the King's mortal remains as it was possible to get. As you can imagine, it gives me a strange feeling ...
Richard was famous in Leicester, and there were legends even then about him and his final battle. I once went to Bosworth Field, and it was touching to see the white roses scattered there in memory of him. His connection with York was mainly nominal, and I believe Leicester is the correct place now for a memorial to him.
Martin, how nice to hear of your connection to Leicester and to Richard III. It's interesting to you say his connection to York was nominal and that Leicester is the right place for him. I have heard many others claim just the opposite (but I have no horse in that race). It is custom for archeologists to re-inter bones in the nearest consecrated land to where they were initially found, so I agree that Leicester is the proper place for him. And back to Shakespeare's Richard III, one of my favorite parts is when he meets the widowed Anne over the body of Henry VI and after winning her says ""Was ever woman in this humour woo'd?
Was ever woman in this humour won?" It's like he's telling the audience "Man, I'm good."
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Ad what a delightful recollection of your school boy days...it is somewhat creepy thinking of you walking past his violent grave...and to such an infamous fellow...
I had not heard of Josephine Tey or Sharon Kay Penman before. (There is always so much to learn from goodreads!) Richard I think is a gift to the novelist because so much mystery surrounds the events of his short reign. For a history of the period I would recommend The Wars of the Roses by John Gillingham, not too long at about 250 pages, and a good intro to the 15th century.Another mystery is More's History of Richard iii. It is often dismissed as a propoganda piece, written to gain favour with the Tudors, but that has to be wrong, because (a) Thomas More struggled against Tudor power, first against Henry vii then Henry viii, and lost his head as a result, and (b) he never published it. It was found among More's papers after his death. Another mystery is its unfinished state -- it breaks off just before the split between Richard and Buckingham. Was it unfinished or is the ending lost? There is also some doubt as to whether it is by More at all.
Meanwhile, my old home town is gripped by Plantagenet fever. Seehttp://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk...
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And Shakespeares Fans...how about this? Within the first few minutes R3 is quoted...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...#!
Nice documentary!But it is extraordinary how S is tied in with the whole of 15th century history now.
Just caught up with the channel4 documentary, "Richard III, the Unseen Story", which, somewhat belatedly, I watched for the first time tonight. What an amazing thing it is! I must go back to Leicester again ...
I thought the most fascinating thing in the documentary (going back to Mark's point above) was the DNA evidence, which depends on the fact that a sequence of the DNA code is completely unchanged between mother and child, but not between father and child. So from Richard III's mother it was passed on to her daughter, to her daughter's daughter, to her daughter's daughter's daughter and so on. And they actually got a line of descent to a final daughter who had only sons, and one of the sons was traced and he gave a perfect DNA match. So they made it just in time: this final son would not pass the sequence unchanged to his own children. With this 100% match, the fact that the body is Richard's changes from highly probable to certain.It was really interesting to see the names on the female descent line.
Can't watch it here. I've heard a lot of...interesting things about the documentary and was really anxious to see it. But I will have to hope that PBS or somebody gets distribution rights.
Ken, that's interesting. I've just hit the same problem the other way round. The yanks are watching "shakespeare uncovered" on www.pbs.org, but I can't see it over here in England.As a long shot, I did record the channel4 documentary (first few seconds missing) and could press it onto a dvd and send it you, and I believe you can then watch it on any modern computer, though not on a TV in the USA --- if you're interested.
I've noticed in a number of recent news broadcasts, S is attributed as having described Richard as being a "hunchback" and having a "withered arm". But we S fans know that this is not correct. The word "hunchback" occurs nowhere in S's works (if you except "gobbo" in Merchant of Venice -- "gobbo" is "hunchback" in Italian), and in the Henry VI plays Richard is described three times as having a crookback. But this could merely mean mis-shapen. In the play Richard iii itself, S carefully leaves the nature of Richard's deformity unexplained, which is very useful to actors wishing to develop different styles of performance. The "withered arm" idea presumably comes from a garbled reading of the final scene between Hastings and Richard.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08...
http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/18/world/e...
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I DID finally see the whole BBc story documentary you linked here way back over a year ago. It was really fantastic. I watched it three times!
K wrote: "Susan, why do you disbelieve that Richard murdered the princes? I actually think he was far from a decent man. "For a very nice and very readable defense of Richard, read Josephine Tey's Daughter of Time.
It's light, fun reading, but puts the case very interestingly.
We have to realize that basically the history of Richard was written by his enemies, and that's what Shakespeare picked up on (in his day it would have been almost suicidal to write favorably of Richard). It's as though the Germans had won WWII and the only biography of Winston Churchill were written by Goebbels, along with a popular play presenting him as a murderer and villain, and there was nothing in Churchill's own hand, no video, no audio, etc to counter the Goebbels version. How well would Churchill be seen by your great-great grandchildren?
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I also respect Everyman's temperate perspective on who is writing history...influencing their opinion.
I might like to say though...I would use a different example than Goebbels writing a bio of winston churchill.
I think there is no doubt who is on the "life-affirming side" of history. sometimes history isn't about being on one side or another...it is about whether we make decisions as a community and for life-affirming choices for that community.
I believe Goebbels was just this side of a serial killer and his word is as an unreliable narrator.
However...I think Everyman is on to something...I would suggest what if someone from India wrote a bio of Winston Churchill?
if a Pashtan tribes member wrote a bio of Chrchill we might see a more reasoned perspective and balance on history. I guess if a Native American wrote a bio of Columbus.
But Goebbels was the geneocide perspective. In fact if some of the stories about the small young princes and Richard III killing them...they have more in common.
I don't know if Richard III killed the Princes. But I do think that some of the regular people average merchants and population of London at the time believed he did...and it makes me wonder that they might be correct....
Part of the interesting thing about Richard is his reputation. I suspect he had terrible bitterness that would manifest in social situations. I'm not saying he was a monster...but I think some people really are awful....and some rumors are based on truth within behavior. I suspect he was the kind of personality that the populace could imagine killing young children.
For what it's worth...
Candy wrote: "if a Pashtan tribes member wrote a bio of Chrchill we might see a more reasoned perspective"
Yes, but that's the point. It wasn't a neutral party who wrote Richard's biography. It was his bitterest enemies, who had arguably stolen the crown from him and now had to try to justify to the people of England why the people should accept Henry as king, and the best way to do that is to totally trash Richard's memory, blame him for every possible evil you can, turn him into a monster, when all evidence is that he was actually a pretty bright, cultured person. But the Tudors couldn't allow the people to think anything good of him at all. And their fury at those who would try to defend him be sudden, swift, and deadly.
The two most recent news items, about Richard's diet and manner of death, are of course old news. It was all covered in the channel 4 documentary. I think what tends to happen is that you get published academic papers that follow the first announcements of a discovery, and then the press repeats the story again.
I'm a little late to this discussion and just catching up, but when they say he "drank like a fish" I think some perspective is in order. Everyone drank tons of alcohol in those days. What else was there? Water wasn't safe. There certainly was no diet coke or Gatorade. You drank alcohol and other forms of alcohol. So characterizing this part of his diet as "drinking like a fish" is a modern mischaracterization of how things were then.
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I understand and agree that 'history is written by the winners'.
I get that, I also have no idea who Richard III was, of course. My only knowledge of him is the fictional character.
However, I am responding to 2 ideas here. One is that if an enemy writes about Goebbels, we are to be suspicious. Goebbels was sick and a war criminal...and he practiced genocide. So I don't care wh writes about him...his enemy is not an unreliable narrator for me. If Hitler was writing a wonderful cheery bio of Goebbels...I would be suspicious.
Sometimes, people are on the wrong side of history. Goebbels is one of those people.
Sometimes, people really are bad. The clues to character in an oral history are the details and weird bits of body language and notes within gossip.
Two, Everyman said, "blame him for every possible evil you can, turn him into a monster, when all evidence is that he was actually a pretty bright, cultured person."
Maybe Richard wasn't a monster. I get that.
But...being cultured and bright doesn't make one's character good. Being bright or culture doesn't make one kind, or compassionate or life affirming.
We can think of many examples of selfish, malignant personalities who also were smart, funny, charming, art-lovers, great readers.
In fact, some of the most intriguing bad guys....are the ones who have these attractive qualities.
One of the traits of a con man is that they seduce the mark. They do this by being charming, listeners and convince a person to trust them. Many dictators and power-mad leaders have had exquisite taste in music and art and cuisine and history.
In fact, often the way a dictator, or con artist, or serial killer functions and gets into opportunistic positions of power is because of their great charm and manners.
I'm not saying we have any proof that Richard was evil...but I do have some faith that the rumors and fears of the common people around an ale house...in the streets...may have been based on some kind of real intuition and gut feeling. The court of public opinion may have some value...
As for drinking like a fish, Lea...I did not take that observation as a moral commentary or excluding the patterns of drinking at the time. Even people who immigrated to U.S. drank all day and long hours. Even children. (I watched "prohibition" by Ken Burns LOL)
I think the article might have been written more fully rounded by saying how everyone drank back then....however I don't see it as a negative or a positive. Any research story being covered by mainstream press...is well-served to be researched more by the reader...ALL news stories are better served with more reading done by the public.
Candy wrote: "However, I am responding to 2 ideas here. One is that if an enemy writes about Goebbels, we are to be suspicious. Goebbels was sick and a war criminal...and he practiced genocide.."But if the ONLY biographies or dramatic histories that were written about him were written by his friends and showed him as a kind and loving person, and that was all the information about him, how would people 500 years from now know any different? You only say what you do about Goebbels because you have other information. But if you didn't, you would probably believe the published biographies, and the play about him showing only a good side of him.
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And a lot of people learn through life that there are many layers to people. So if we read a novel where too much information is leaning a particular way, and the writer gives us clues...we might start to think...this is an unreliable narrator here in this story....
A lot of readers are aware of the idea of an unreliable narrator, from FIGHT CLUB to CATCHER in the RYE to HAMLET to LOLITA to HUCK FINN....
These are great metaphors for history sometimes being unreliable. But I also don't think people are that dumb. I think most of us know after we get to be adults that a story has many sides.
People are unreliable and often are not honest with themselves let alone others.
Maybe Richard III triggers this sense of injustice for some readers. I am sure that for some readers it must be terribly difficult to imagine a King...a father figure...could be so awful. Ambiguous and darkly drawn fathers can be a challenging trigger for some readers.
For me...Richards portrayal in the play touches a "truth" of some kind. Of a kind of personality that is driven and corrupted by their lack of status in society and personal insecurities driving them to power.
For me...the court of public opinion...of common sense and the general mood of the people who gossiped about Richard III has some truth to it...for me. I believe he behaved in such a way, sketchy, shady, perverted and cruel...to warrant these feelings to travel through the common people all the way to writers like Shakespeare.
But even if Richard III was not actually a liar and trickster r power mad and corrupted....he wasn't a very good leader.
As a leader he would have been well-served if he had protected the young princes. He could have stopped all kinds of nonsense and he should have produced the Princes to gain loyalty or to be able to dismiss Henry. People did not accept his rule...and he failed to convince his people that he was a good leader and for them to become loyal. Even if he was the bravest sweetest person....he was a failure as a leader and seemed to lack the kind of personality that gathers the respect of men and the devotion of women. Something that might have helped him not be in the midst of cloudy series of events.
I believe the portrayal of Richard III is one of the grandest in literature and is an achievement. Is it "true" of the real man? Maybe, maybe not. But Richard himself left his legacy wide open by not living in a manner and transparent with his actions....something was wrong or messed up with him.
If at the very least he "transmitted doubt" then that is a weakness in a leader. Perhaps that was his only flaw that he had lousy leadership skills. In his case....that is as a good as any for anyone to swoop in and work on making him even more foul.
The thing is Everyman...a stand up person would have dealt with these in discrepancies and weaknesses....and cleared things up so he would never have a rumor he killed children/princes.
Richard had the choice to clear that up. If the boys were alive Richard had to produce them...or else he was as good as dead...and no one would respect him.
The evidence we have here Everyman is common sense. Richard had to prove the Princes were alive. Anyone would have done that in order to achieve leadership with the people and confound enemies in competition for the Crown.
As far as I can see Richard was either a complete idiot and didn't understand common leadership or he had those boys killed, or acted opportunistically if someone else killed them.
I think theres something else too....theres a saying. "you're only as sick as your secrets". And I think Richard had a lot of secrets. I think Richard did this lack of character to himself. When the news story was released that Richard drank like a fish....I thought a bit about the psychology of an alcoholic. And all the double dealing and lying that alcoholics do to keep their secrets secret...the biggest secret that they are addicts. I think the science of his bones...combined with the lack of leadership and being able to build loyalty indicate there is good reason for a bad collective memory of Richard spread through the public.
Three years later and I did it: went to Leicester and saw the tomb and visitors centre (=museum) of Richard himself. See this, and the next six pics,https://www.goodreads.com/photo/group...
In Leicester, the memory of Richard is huge. The Cathedral has a small army of volunteer staff to welcome visitors, who are still pouring in from all over the world. Progess around the city was slow, as my own connection with the place got people talking to me for a quarter of an hour at a time. (If you recall I went to Alderman Newton Boys School, and the body was found under a car park which used to be the playground of Alderman Newton Girls School just across the road.)
Here's a photo of a typical volunteer in animated conversation with a typical tourist by Richard's tomb.
I just think this is so exciting!