Tillyard
'Shakespeare accepted the prevalent belief that God had guided England into her haven of Tudor prosperity'
Kott
'for Shakespeare, history stands still'
Moseley on Richard's victims
None of Richard's victims are gutless of innocent blood
Young on women
Women have power in the play because they seem to be beyond Richards control
Prescott on Hastings
a figure of colossal complacency
Rich
Richard is a chameleon
Connolly
part of a wider narrative of divine retribution
Dollimoore on women
unusual...in the prominence of its female character
Galloway on women
[the women] mitigate the natural destructiveness inherent in a male dominated world
Kott on Margaret
[Shakespeare] has revivified her
In the Michael Boyd production, Margaret
literally carried the past with her (in the form of the skeleton of her son)
Kott on Richmond
Necessary but personally uninteresting
Hebron on the Tudor Myth interpretation
Tudor triumphalism... is remarkably muted
Barker and Murray on disability
metaphorical shortcut to ideas of deviance
Greenblat on disability
he has internalised the loathing he inspires
Donkor on disability
parroting ugly and abusive taunts
Schaap Williams: 'body anomalies were seen as...
...evidence of deeper moral truths'
Schaap Williams: 'the body...
...enables his actions'
Greenblat on Anne
shallow, corruptible, naively ambitious, and, above all, frightened
Greenblat on women
keep moral hope alive for us
Greenblat on Margaret
haunts the royal court like a half-crazed Greek tragic chorus
Hebron on women
reminders of the past which suggest that a cosmic force is at work
Belsey on Elizabeth
a kind of ventriloquist dummy
Belsey on women
Richard appropriates the theatrical power and agency of the women
Tillyard on women
a chorus to lament and observes but powerless to influence events
Tillyard: 'women's lamentations were...
...ritual, incantory, and ecclesiastical in tone'
Dash on women
Margaret empowers the other women to stand up to Richard
Dusinberre
Shakespeare challenged an Elizabethan view of gender
Rackin on women
women are marginalised
Bushnell: 'Richard becomes...
...both the man who possesses and the woman who submits'
Greenblat on Richard as the Vice
a wickedly engaging ability to defer though not finally to escape well-deserved punishment
Hebron on the Vice
Shakespeare adds layers which take him away from the medieval tradition
Holland on McKellan's Richard
his most natural ally is the camera
Donkor on Machiavelli
Richard's actions disfigure Machiavellian ideas
Donkor: 'Richard's barbarism...
...is gratuitous'
Donkor: 'Richard's anti-Machiavellian...
...wavering between roles and modes of conduct'
Greenblat: 'Richard thrives...
...on the violation of social and natural bonds''
Maniutiu
Richard III means nothing without love
In Maniutiu's production the exchanges between Richard and Margaret become...
raunchy flirtation driven by mutual sexual fascination
Greenblat: 'Tudor apologists depict Richard as...
... a monster of evil'
Kott: 'the plays was rehearsing...
...repressed anxieties about the Elizabethan succession'
Hebron on free will
decision-making is an illusion disguising a scripted reality