The Thumbnail Book Reviews

by John Q McDonald --- 24 February 2007

Richard III

by William Shakespeare

People just love soap operas. Watching, in particular, the rich and powerful fight it out for position and power and sex can be surprisingly entertaining. William Shakespeare proves that this is nothing new. This play depicts some of the waning years of the War of the Roses, as the Yorks and Lancasters fought it out for the English crown. Richard, Duke of Gloucester, has killed Henry VI in an earlier play. This one opens with Richard brazenly wooing the Henry's widow over the dead king's corpse. This is just the beginning of Richard's path of terror and conquest. The play is littered with the bodies of the men in the way of Richard's rise to the throne. There are women battered by grief over the men Richard kills, from his brothers to his nephews to his lords and advisers. It is a gory path he lays out for himself. His brazen behavior, however, is hypnotic and curiously entertaining. The play is full of the ornate and colorful curses and jibes that Shakespeare is famous for. And, in the end, of course, Richard reaps what he has sown and it is a satisfying downfall. Richard's brutality is almost unparalleled, and Shakespeare's history, while popular in his day, is a little shaky, by modern standards. And yet the play moves quickly and vibrantly to its brutal conclusion. It is difficult to describe something so violent as a romp, but as such it somehow comes off. And with a moral, to boot.

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Also by Shakespeare: [The Tempest] [The Winter's Tale]