1 - The Body
Summary
The play opens with startling immediacy. In a shared present tense, established with the opening syllable – ‘now’ – we are confronted by a figure whose body speaks to us before he opens his mouth. No other Shakespeare character – except perhaps Falstaff, or the ‘translated’ Bottom – has such an instantly recognizable physical appearance. As the play goes on, we are invited to read, to puzzle at, this anomalous body. Richard's first speech presents his physical shape in terms of the exclusion it forces on him, and he presents as exclusion from relationships with women.
But I, that am not shap'd for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph:
I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling Nature,
Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world scarce half made up –
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me, as I halt by them –
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun,
And descant on mine own deformity.
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain,
And hate the idle pleasures of these days
(I.i.14–31)In this he contrasts himself to his brother King Edward IV, ‘this son of York’ of the second line of the play, as ‘love's majesty’ points up in its reference to kingship. Edward was a notorious womanizer, whose most famous mistress was the city woman Jane Shore. She is alluded to in the play text, and was very much part of the story as the audience would already know it, but she has no lines in the play, and is only present on stage if a director chooses to make her so.
In a psychological reading of the play, Richard's ‘deformity’ – to use a term which a modern reader may prefer to replace with ‘disability’, but which the play, at this early stage, has Richard use of himself – can be invoked as the motivation of his actions.
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- Information
- Richard III , pp. 18 - 37Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2006