| Richard III’s Remains Positively Identified |
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The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 24.0048 Wednesday, 6 February 2013
[1] From: Al Magary < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it > Date: February 5, 2013 7:09:11 PM EST Subject: Re: SHAKSPER: R3
[2] From: Larry Weiss < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it > Date: February 6, 2013 2:36:21 AM EST Subject: Re: SHAKSPER: R3
[3] From: Herbert Weil < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it > Date: February 5, 2013 11:29:27 PM EST Subject: Poor Richard
[4] From: Ton Hoenselaars < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it > Date: February 6, 2013 3:09:51 PM EST Subject: RE: SHAKSPER: R3
[1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Al Magary < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it > Date: February 5, 2013 7:09:11 PM EST Subject: Re: SHAKSPER: R3
Almost every article I read about the discovery and identification of Richard III’s bones mixed up the historical person and the theatrical character. Perhaps the flourishing of new scholarship that Ricardians hope for will clean up the real Richard’s reputation a bit, but it won’t—and shouldn’t—affect the stage Richard, our R3.
Sure, I read Josephine Tey’s Daughter of Time—terrific detective novel—long ago and got the idea that the history was written by the victors, the Tudors, including Thomas More and Edward Hall, whence Shakespeare. The Tudors could only gain by portraying Richard as the devil’s spawn and indicting him for the murder of the Princes in the Tower (and worse).
But that’s historiography and interpretation of scanty evidence on Richard of Gloucester, Yorkist prince, warrior, and king for two years. In the end that has too little to do with the theatrical Richard, our R3, beyond what may be written in program notes.
As there is so little new evidence beyond the bones, I doubt there will be new scholarship so much as continued attempts by the Richard III Society to put him in shining armor. That matters not, for Richard will always be a duality: historical person about whom we know too little, and the blood-dripping Machiavel on stage. Long may the latter reign.
Cheers, Al Magary
[2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Herbert Weil < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it > Date: February 5, 2013 11:29:27 PM EST Subject: Poor Richard
I do not know the author so cannot propose it for SHAKSPER.
Poor Richard
Zounds! Forget I ever did lament That fabled time of discontent. Though Avon cur had me reviled, I’m even now the more defiled. This disinterment is far worse Than anything in blankest verse Cursed exposure, even ruder Than unhorsing by a Tudor. Bolingbroke, he had his way, But now I’m naught but DNA. My backbone, steeled ‘gainst War of Roses, Only speaks of scoliosis. Ah me! Eternal woes beset Poor Richard Three, Plantagenet. Oh pestilence! Who madst me fester In a car park smack in Leicester?
Herb Weil Prof. Emeritus University of Manitoba
[3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Larry Weiss < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it > Date: February 6, 2013 2:36:21 AM EST Subject: Re: SHAKSPER: R3
I have heard that the remains of Henry VI have been found under the sports pitch in Wapping, only about 1000 yards from the Tower; but they were in three parts.
[4]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ton Hoenselaars < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it > Date: February 6, 2013 3:09:51 PM EST Subject: RE: SHAKSPER: R3
The Washington Post link in the RIII message does not respond.
Ton Hoenselaars Professor of Early Modern English Literature and Culture Department of English Utrecht University
[Editor’s Note: Sorry all. Below is the correct link:
-Hardy] |