How to Study Shakespeare

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: KING RICHARD THE THIRD I. The Source of the Plot. Shakespeare derived the history of Richard the Third, which he has dramatized in this play, from the Chronicles of Hall and Holinshed. They, in turn, are indebted for their facts to Sir Thomas More's Life of Richard III. The play, says Wright, is the...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: KING RICHARD THE THIRD I. The Source of the Plot. Shakespeare derived the history of Richard the Third, which he has dramatized in this play, from the Chronicles of Hall and Holinshed. They, in turn, are indebted for their facts to Sir Thomas More's Life of Richard III. The play, says Wright, is the historical narrative of Sir Thomas More, as incorporated by Hall and Holinshed in (heir Chronicles] dramatized, and the only scene of importance for which some hint has not been supplied in the history is the second scene of the first Act, in which Richard woos the widow of Prince Edward. This and the various appearances of the old Queen Margaret are introduced in defiance of historic truth and probability for the simple purpose of stage effect. Preface to the Clarendon Press Edition of the play, p. vi. In the same Preface, pp. vii.-lvii., will be found, reprinted in full, all the parts of Hall's Chronicles used by Shakespeare. Those from Holinshed can be found in Shakespeare's Holinshed, W. G. Boswell- Stone, pp. 343-424. Mr'. Boswell-Stone hasmade a critical and exhaustive comparison of the Chronicle and the play. All the passages from More, Hall, and Hol- inshed illustrative of the play can be found in Uolfe's Edition of Richard 111., pp. 167-180. At the time Shakespeare wrote his play there were two other dramas on this subject?one in Latin, by Dr. Thomas Legge, Richardus Ter- tijis; the other in English, The Trva Tragedie of Richard the Third, seq. It is not likely that Shakespeare made any use whatever of the former. There is one line, and only one, in the latter?viz., Richard's exclamation, A horse, a horse, a fresh horse, which is like a line in Shakespeare's play. In V. 4. 7, 13, Shakespeare puts into Richard's mouth the words: A horse a horse ...