Abstract
There are four episodes in Shakespeare’s Richard III that have important dramaturgical elements in common. All four episodes seem, on the surface, to resemble the de casibus biographies that were so characteristic of the Henry VI plays. The biographies here (three of them pertinent to this chapter and the fourth examined in chapter 5) dramatize the tragic deaths of Clarence, Edward IV, Hastings, and Buckingham. These characters all appear at various points in More’s History, and Shakespeare makes each of them significant characters in his play. Beyond that, all four were the subjects of biographies in Mirror for Magistrates. 1 But in Richard III, the de casibus experience that these four characters share—a sudden blow that casts them from their high estate into a precipitous and fatal fall—has been rendered with new insight. In writing this play, Shakespeare discovered how to make a static form dynamic.
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Notes
Charles A. Hallett, “‘For she is changed, as she had never been’: Kate’s Reversal in The Taming of the Shrew,” Shakespeare Bulletin 20 (2002), 10.
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© 2011 Charles A. Hallett and Elaine S. Hallett
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Hallett, C.A., Hallett, E.S. (2011). “Thou Art a Traitor. Off with his Head!”: Applying the Ricardian Shock to de Casibus Narrative. In: The Artistic Links Between William Shakespeare and Sir Thomas More. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230119529_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230119529_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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