THE ARTISTIC LINKS BETWEEN WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE AND SIR THOMAS MORE

Transcription

1 THE ARTISTIC LINKS BETWEEN WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE AND SIR THOMAS MORE

2 OTHER WORKS BY CHARLES A. HALLETT AND ELAINE S. HALLETT Charles Middleton s Cynics: Middleton s Insight into the Moral Psychology of the Mediocre Man (1975) Charles and Elaine The Revenger s Madness: A Study of Revenge Tragedy Motifs (1980) Analyzing Shakespeare s Action: Scene versus Sequence (1991, 2006)

3 THE ARTISTIC LINKS BETWEEN WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE AND SIR THOMAS MORE RADICALLY DIFFERENT RICHARDS Charles A. Hallett and Elaine S. Hallett

4 THE ARTISTIC LINKS BETWEEN WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE AND SIR THOMAS MORE Copyright Charles A. Hallett and Elaine S. Hallett, Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition All rights reserved. First published in 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN in the United States a division of St. Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number , of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI / Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hallett, Charles A., 1935 The Artistic Links Between William Shakespeare and Sir Thomas More : Radically Different Richards / Charles A. Hallett, Elaine S. Hallett. p. cm. 1. Shakespeare, William, King Richard III. 2. More, Thomas, Sir, Saint, History of King Richard the Third. 3. Shakespeare, William, King Richard III Sources. 4. Richard III, King of England, In literature. 5. Shakespeare, William, Technique I. Hallett, Elaine S., 1935 II. Title. PR2821.H dc A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: June Transferred to Digital Printing in 2012

5 To June Schlueter, who asked some pertinent questions why does Shakespeare want to write drama? what does a work of drama do?

6 CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix Introduction Preface: Shakespeare s Search for the Essence of Dramatic Form 3 1 More Virtually Does Shakespeare s Work for Him : Dogmas of the More Myth 13 Part I Inspiration: Re- envisioning the Historical Narrative from the Protagonist s Point of View 2 Thou Art a Traitor. Off with His Head! : Applying the Ricardian Shock to De Casibus Narrative 41 3 For on That Ground I ll Make a Holy Descant : Two Con Men Show How Their Thespian Skills Brought Richard s Cause to a Happy Issue 85 Part II The Supreme Achievement: Shakespeare s Discoveries Perfected and Applied 4 Was Ever Woman in This Humor Woo d? / Was Ever Woman in This Humor Won? : Richard s Boast of His Prowess as Lover and Playwright 133 Part III Expanding the Perspective: The Dynamics of the Play s Geological Fault 5 The Most Arch Act of Piteous Massacre / That Ever Yet This Land Was Guilty of : How Shakespeare s Method of Exposing Richard Differs from More s 167

7 viii CONTENTS 6 To Her Go I, a Jolly Thriving Wooer : The Second Wooing Scene ( ) Here Pitch Our Tent, Even Here in Bosworth Field : Meanwhile, Back at the Tetralogy Later Uses of the Ricardian Template: Crafting the Fifth Act of Coriolanus 229 Epilogue 241 Appendix: Interlocking Episodes of Action: Shakespeare s Use of More s Rusty Armor Scene ( ) 245 Notes 255 Works Cited 275 Shakespeare s Richard III Index of Scenes Analyzed 281 Index 285

8 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS O ur perpetual gratitude, first, to Hugh Richmond, our peer reviewer, and to Brigitte Shull, Jo Roberts, and the staff at Palgrave Macmillan, who relieved us of the labors of slaving over our manuscript by determining that it was ready for print. June Schlueter deserves many blessings as well for playing the role of the Grim Ripper in helping us to meet Palgrave s word limit (and for offering her insights on the book s numerous early drafts). For critiquing the entire manuscript from the perspective of his many years on stage and from his recent experience as a Theatre Panelist for London s Olivier Awards, we owe much to Frederick Pyne. Thanks, too, to all of those kind friends who suggested improvements in individual chapters Sarah Stanton, Heather Dubrow, Hugh Boulton, and our array of Davids David Kastan, David Landman, David Casagrande. Their early challenges helped us to refine our arguments. Production details were kindly overseen by Richard Bellis and Rohini Krishnan, and, at the perfect moment, Betsy Kruger supplied us, in reproducible digital form, with the Motley image that graces our cover. Debts to our predecessors whose work on Richard III made our task easier have been acknowledged in the Notes; however, Emrys Jones, Robert Turner, Chris Hassel, Peter Holland, and John Jowett deserve special notice in this regard, as does George M. Logan, whose timely publication of an excellent reading edition of The History of King Richard III made Sir Thomas More s work conveniently accessible. The works of Eric Voegelin, Maynard Mack, and Brian Vickers have also informed this study. For financial assistance that allowed us to visit Shakespeare libraries in England and helped to underwrite the costs of writing and preparing the manuscript, we owe much to Fordham University, and for graciously awarding Charles the status of Visiting Scholar, thereby putting its libraries and computer facilities at our disposal, we extend thanks to Dartmouth College, where most of this book was written, and to Dartmouth s Peter Travis and Susan Bibeau. We are also grateful for the

9 x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS generosity of Eric Rosenberg and Michele Kolb, who provided our home office in New York City. And let us not forget those who gave us needed encouragement as we prepared this book Harry Keyishian, Mark Caldwell, Barbara Hanrahan, Matthew Frost, Ronnie Mulryne, and George Zournas. Shakespeare quotations are from G. Blakemore Evans, ed., The Riverside Shakespeare, 2e, 1997 Heinle/Arts & Sciences, a part of Cengage Learning, Inc. Reproduced by permission. Citations to Thomas More s History of King Richard the Third in our text are to the edition prepared by George M. Logan: The History of King Richard the Third: A Reading Edition. By Thomas More. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, Reproduced by permission. Paul Budra, Drama from A Mirror for Magistrates and the de casibus tradition. University of Toronto Press, 2000 (pp ). Reprinted with permission of the publisher. Van Laan, Thomas F. Role-playing in Shakespeare University of Toronto Press, 1978 (p. 144). Reprinted with permission of the publisher. Cover image from the Motley Designs Collection is used courtesy of The Rare Book & Manuscript Library of the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign. The costume was designed for the Glen Byam Shaw production of Richard III at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford-upon- Avon (1953).