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The Relation of Macbeth to Richard the Third
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Most editors and commentators writing about Macbeth or Richard the Third notice a resemblance between the two plays, but seldom does the comparison go beyond this eighteenth century comment: “Both Macbeth and Richard are soldiers, both usurpers; both attain the throne by the same means, by treason and murder; and both lose it too in the same manner, in battle against the person claiming it as lawful heir.” A few parallel passages have been pointed out, but there are many parallels that as far as I have been able to determine have not been noticed in the commentaries. It is my intention, therefore, to examine closely the resemblance between the two plays, calling attention to parallels, which may be so many and of such a sort as to require an explanation other than coincidence.
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References
1 Thomas Whately, Remarks on Some of the Characters of Shakespeare, (Oxford, 1785), p. 9. This essay started a discussion of the comparative courage of Richard and Macbeth. See H. Cumberland, in The Observer, London, ii (1788), 225-264; an anonymous writer in The European Magazine, xi (1787), 227-229; J. P. Kemble, Macbeth and Richard III, London, 1817; an article by Kemble in Portico, iv (1817), 329-334; “Senex” in Blackwood's, i (1817), 455-459.
2 See the notes of the Warwick Edition of Richard III, ed. George Macdonald (London, 1896); and the Arden (Heath) Edition of Richard III, ed. H. Spencer (New York, 1933). I am indebted to these editors for several suggestions. Most of those writing about Richard III and Macbeth are interested in contrasting the characters of Richard and Macbeth. A valuable comparison and contrast of Richard III and Macbeth as plays is the lecture of Barrett Wendell, “The Growth of Shakespeare,” published in A Memorial Volume to Shakespeare and Harvey, 1916, U. of Texas Bulletin, No. 1701, pp. 28-46.
3 William Hazlitt, Characters of Shakespeare's Plays (London, 1817), p. 26.
4 There is only one other instance of this expression in Shakespeare according to Bartlett's Concordance; it is in Titus Andronicus.
5 At least she appears, unlike Edward IV, who died a natural death, among the ghosts of those murdered by Richard.
6 See for the supernatural aspects of the witches, G. L. Kittredge, The Complete Works of Shakespeare (New York, 1936), p. 1114. Throughout this paper I follow Kittredge's text.
7 They are “curses,” but they are also regarded as prophecies. See i. iii. 301; iv. iv. 79.
8 See A. Mézières, Shakespeare (Paris, 1860), p. 139.
9 C. H. Herford, ed. The Eversley Edition of The Works of Shakespeare, 10 vols. (London, 1902), v, 394.
10 See the New Variorum Edition of Macbeth (Philadelphia, 1873), pp. 167-171.
11 See the note on v, v, in the New Variorum Richard III (Philadelphia, 1908), pp. 423-424. See also the New Variorum Macbeth, op. cit., pp. 294-295.
12 Oral S. Coad, “Was Macbeth Indebted to Henry VI?,” MLN, xxxviii (1923), 185-187.
13 G. Wilson Knight in “Notes on Shakespeare,” The New Adelphi, i (1927), 69-73.
14 E. K. Chambers, William Shakespeare, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1930), i, 302.
15 A. C. Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy (London, 1904), p. 339.
16 Ibid., p. 390.
17 Op. cit., p. 132.
18 A. W. Verity, Macbeth (Cambridge, 1902), p. 250.
19 Op. cit., p. 338.
20 P. V. Kreider, Repetition in Shakespeare's Plays (Princeton, 1941).
21 Verity, op. cit., p. 26.
22 F. E. Schelling, Elizabethan Drama, 2 vols. (Boston, 1908), i, 299.
23 For the history of the period see S. R. Gardiner, History of England, 1603-1616, 2 vols; (London, 1863).
24 See Lilian Winstanley, Macbeth, King Lear, and Contemporary History (Cambridge, 1922), for James's attitude toward Elizabeth. The author maintains, pp. 39-40, that James in attempting to revive the old Arthurian empire through Banquo was jealous of rival Tudor claims.
25 See F. E. Schelling, The English Chronicle Play (New York, 1902), pp. 1-2, 53-54, 273.
26 See G. P. Baker, The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist (New York, 1907), p. 157.
27 See the passages from John Manningham's Diary and The Return from Pernassus in The Shakspere Allusion-Book, ed. J. Munro, 1909; reissued, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1932), i, 98, 102.
28 Macbeth is tied up with the English history plays in W. Wetz, “Shakespeare's Macbeth und seine königsdramen,” Eng. St., 16 (1892), 11-18. For the turn from English history to history of foreign countries at the beginning of the century see Schelling, Elizabethan Drama, op. cit., ii, 300.
29 Chambers, William Shakespeare, op. cit., i, 304.
30 Ibid., ii, 395-396, for a list of printed editions.
31 See Alfred Harbage, Annals of the English Drama, 975-1700 (Phila., 1940); and Schelling, The English Chronicle Play, op. cit., passim.
32 William Shakespeare, op. cit., i, 133.
33 Op. cit., i, 128-242.
34 Ibid., i, 72-73.
35 See Malone's essay on “The Chronological Order of Shakespeare's Plays,” 1778, as published in The Plays of William Shakespeare with Notes by Samuel Johnson and George Steevens, 15 vols., 4th edition (London, 1793), i, 553-565.
36 B. E. Warner, English History in Shakespeare's Plays (New York, 1916), p. 299.
37 See K. Elze, Sh. Jb., ix (1874), 55-86.
38 Charles Knight, Studies of Shakspere (London, 1868), pp. 398-399.
39 Cumberland Clark, A Study of Shakespeare's Henry the Eighth (London, 1931), p. 33.
40 See E. K. Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage, 4 vols. (Oxford, 1923), i, 326-328.
41 Chambers, William Shakespeare, op. cit., i, 304, thinks the pruned oaths in the first folio point to this.
42 See Schelling, Elizabethan Drama, op. cit., ii, 412.
43 L. L. Schücking, Character Problems in Shakespeare's Plays (London, 1922), p. 73.
44 Op. cit.
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