Critics

Question 1

E.M.W Tillyard

Answer 1

‘great men die acknowledging their guilt and thinking of others’
Richard is a ‘desparing embodiment of evil’

Question 2

Blades

Answer 2

‘unremitting gloom, sorrow, and danger and sinister shadows consuming all signs of virtuos shoots’- Mood of play from A1 S1.
‘Richmond the healer is immediately linked with imagery of brightness and warmth’
‘Elizabeth was merely weak and interchangable’

Question 3

Childhood

Freud

Answer 3

‘we all demand reparation for our early wounds’

Question 4

Disability

Donker

Answer 4

‘his physical damage is matched by complex psychological impairment’

Question 5

Morals

Rossiter

Answer 5

‘holiday from morality’

Question 6

Harold Bloom

Answer 6

‘threatens and seduces the audience, making all of us akin to the masochist Lady Anne

Question 7

Rulers

Czach

Answer 7

‘Richard is one in a chain of comparable rules’

Question 8

Bloom

Answer 8

‘We are on unnervingly confidential terms with him’ [Richard]

Question 9

Women

Galloway

Answer 9

‘The women of the play function as voices of protest and morality’

Question 10

Women

Levine

Answer 10

Richard is ‘warring with women’

Question 11

Disability

Wood

Answer 11

‘To Shakespeare’s audience, Richard would have recognised Richard’s physical deformity and moral depravity as a synecdoche for the state’

Question 12

Rulers

David Baldwin

Answer 12

Historian on the real Richard III
‘If Richard III had not had a ruthless streak in his character, he would not have been a successful medieval leader.’

Question 13

Animalistic Imagery

Mothersdale

Answer 13

Actor of RIchard III
‘We looked at all the the animals he’s called in the play and asked: ‘What would a cross between a boar, spider, a slug and a hedgehog look like?’’

Question 14

Shakespeare’s scandal sheet

Answer 14

Richard ‘personifies the unsettling contradictions of the grotesque: at once repellent and fantastic, a shock and a wonder’

Question 15

Language

McDonald

Answer 15

Repeating patterns in Richard III is ‘a stronger speaker wrestling verbal power away from one who is weaker’.

Question 16

Women

S.Levine

Answer 16

The women of the play ‘turn their grief into vengeance in an attempt to right the monstrosity they have engendered.’

Question 17

Women

Galloway

Answer 17

The women of the Play ‘come to function as the national voice for retributive justice’

Question 18

Morals

Dowden

Answer 18

Richard ‘inverts the moral order of things and tried to live in this inverted system… he dashes himself to pieces against the laws of the world which he has outraged’

Question 19

Disability

Sir Ian McKellan, 1995 film version

Answer 19

‘Richard’s wickedness is an outcome of other people’s disaffection with his physique’

Question 20

Kevin Spacey

Answer 20

The play ‘is about a man who doesn’t have a conscience and grows a conscience’

Question 21

Disability

2019- Headlong version

Answer 21

-Mirrors around stage to highlight RIchard’s preoccupation with his physical appearance.

Question 22

Disability

2016- Hollow Crown

Answer 22

-Struggles to get dressed at the start, psychological effects of disability.

Question 23

Disability

Royal Shakespeare Company 2022

Answer 23

Arthur Hughes as Richard, has Radical Dysplasia.
Act 3 Scene 7, Bishops are the ones ordered to kill Clarence.

Question 24

Women

Bilal Harmamra

Answer 24

‘[Margaret} is the voice of divine retribution against Richard’s blasphemous actions.’

Question 25

# Religion Propellor Theatre Company

Answer 25

In the final scene during RIchmond's pious speech, the guns of the soldiers are slowly lowered to the audience.

Question 26

# Rulers Kolt

Answer 26

'Shakespeare's Kings personify a history without conscience or morality'

Question 27

What is Formalism and New Criticism? When can it be used?

Answer 27

Formalism-Focuses on Structural purposes of text and how something is written rather than its contents. New Criticism- Focuses on close reading, analysis of text and it’s direct meaning Can be used in Section A

Question 28

Moral and Philosophical Literary Critisism, what is it? When can it be used?

Answer 28

Approach literature based on ethical merits Evaluates moral statements and judgements, believe that the larger purpose of literature is so teach morality and to discuss philosophical issues They evaluate what is ‘truly right’ based on intersectional factors- e.g age or gender Can be used to discuss the morals of Richard III and those around him

Question 29

Biological Criticism + Historical Critisism what is it? When can you use it?

Answer 29

Biological Criticism examines the facts and motives of an author’s life to give light of the meaning of their work- this Critisism sees the work exclusively as a reflection of the author’s life Historical Critisism, as it sounds, considers cultural and historical context of a text Tudor Myth for Richard III, Divine Right of Kings, inner corruption represented with outer disability.

Question 30

Feminist criticism, what is it? When can it be used?

Answer 30

Used to examine gender in literature, gender expectations and conflicts between men and women. Women in Richard III are representative of how important marriage is to a woman’s social position, and how interlinked man, wife and child become after-unable to be separated as different entities. Richard III displays features of contemporary ‘Toxic Masculinity’

Question 32

Wiley Online Guardian

Answer 32

‘[The women of the Play] indulge in competitive lamentation and united under the pretence of avenging the death of their of avenging the death of their beloved, murdered children and family members’ Representative of Feminist Criticism that the women of the Play are victims of the misogyny of the time and are only able to express power and influence through the traditional feminine concept of lamentation, in order to avoid being dismissed by the men of the Play are