Reading
Shakespeare´s King Richard III against the grain
Plots
have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By
drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams,
To
set my brother Clarence and the King
In
deadly hate, the one against the other…
You may recognize the first lines of The Tragedy of King Richard III by
Shakespeare. In general an
Elizabethan play will unfold scenes and dialogue which contradict such lines, for
instance in the Merchant of Venice or
Antony and Cleopatra. Our first impression of the character changes quickly
after the introduction, and it should change quickly too. One of the most
attractive features of an Elizabethan tragedy or comedy is that it will build qualities
and motivations for the audience to judge for itself.
Moreover, a work of art by Shakespeare, or for
that matter, a tragedy by Sophocles, seems to allow a certain ambiguity in the
experience of the audience.
Neither of these two phenomena seem to occur in
the Tragedy of King Richard III,
however. From the start we are seduced to accept one interpretation, dividing
good and evil along familiar lines. Can this play be called a tragedy? The
answer is no. Despite its official title professionals in the theatre know it
to be a melodrama. This is what I will illustrate.
In addition, I will express my doubts as to whether
the double strategy which René Girard describes (1), can be found in
this particular play. Inspiring as this notion of a double strategy is, I deny
its existence in Shakespeare´s history on Richard III. Instead, we will move
into darker areas. Girards observations on myth and historical texts (2) bring
me to the conclusion that Shakespeare´s play on Richard III functions as a text
of persecution. In this presentation I hope to explain why.
As a consequence I would like to introduce a
new understanding concerning the outcome of this theatre play: mimetic
satisfaction replacing the idea of catharsis.
SHAKESPEARE
The question whether Shakespeare, writing this
play, belonged to a biased party, is beyond my scope in this presentation. On
that subject I have written the novel Messire.
Elizabethan drama offered a wide variety of plays
and ballades debunking King Richard III, the last Plantagenet from the House of
York. Plays in general, and histories especially, were supposed to unify the
English people under the Tudor-rose. Elizabethan writers were used to twisting
facts in order to build the character´s problem, having a wonderful show on the
one hand and keeping within the boundaries of censorship on the other.
It is amazing, however, to what extent Shakespeare
was influenced by Thomas More´s biased History
on King Richard III, an ironical study of tyranny based on certain ´facts´ and
rumours. Historically, Thomas More´s interpretation was completely wrong. My
novel deals with the historiography which resulted from his decisions. In the
hands of Shakespeare these ´facts´ have become solid fiction. Nothing special
about that, but… in this particular case of successful Shakespearean tradition,
solid fiction has led to ´fact´ again: history books and Tower officials feed the
negative image of the usurper and child murderer constantly. For this process down
to our times I also refer to the phenomenon that contemporary portraits of King
Richard III have been altered, made ugly, to suit dominant views in the
Tudor-period.
In short, the theme of my novel is one of political
spin. It offers historiography from three points of view, one of which includes
The Trial of Richard III by Drewett & Redhead, broadcast by London
Weekend Television in 1984.
FIRST IMAGE OF VILLAINY
My topic at this conference is that The Tragedy of King Richard III is not a
tragedy. Therefore a ´romanesque reading´ - a mimetic reading against the grain
which we can apply to Oedipus Rex and
The Merchant of Venice for instance,
is not possible. Why?
One can summarize the plot in one sentence, the
rise and fall of Richard III, but when it first appeared in print, in the Quarto
of 1597, this was how the play was announced (3):
“The
Tragedy of King Richard the Third, Containing, His treacherous Plots against
his brother Clarence: the pittiefull murther of his innocent nephewes: his
tyrannical usurpation: with the whole course of his detested life, and most
deserved death.”
Such
an announcement corresponds with the first image of villainy in the main
character:
Plots
have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By
drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams,
To
set my brother Clarence and the King
In
deadly hate, the one against the other…
(I,i,
24-35)
which
in fact is never contradicted during the play. Richard of Gloucester seems to
delight in his position, proudly blaming himself, challenging order for fun. The
impression of villainy is elaborated upon and confirmed by royal women cursing
Richard, emphasizing his physical deformities and the strange stories about his
unnatural birth.
My
point is, that from the very first lines, Richard of Gloucester is modelled into
a fascinating monstrosity in a rather melodramatic way. He is the charming Vice
we remember from the mystery plays, blaming himself for all Evil to come, cheating
the rather flat agents of goodness and justice. Categories of ´good´ and ´evil´
are clear-cut from the beginning. Moreover, there is hardly any character
development, no tragic dimensions of doubt and darkness like in Macbeth. As a
consequence the Tudor-Richard´s problem will never become ours. There are no
signs of an internal struggle, though his nightmare before the battle of
Bosworth functions as a kind of confession of guilt and responsibility. The ghosts
which confront him in his sleep, do encourage and comfort his opponent
A TEXT OF PERSECUTION
According to Girard, a text of persecution
manifests itself by the mythic proportions of the supposedly committed crimes,
which direct the attention of the reader to the scapegoat. In general such a
text will not be ´romanesque´ literature, since it is an unconscious effort to
supply the audience, and the author, with an explanation of past events.
A text of persecution contains a rather seductive
narrative. It is written from the perspective of the dominant party and guides
the reader to a certain satisfaction about offences, attributed to somebody who
during the action is brought down and punished. The characteristics of such a
text, mentioned by Girard in The
Scapegoat are the following:
1. The blotting out of differences: indifferentiation,
chaos as a result of expanding mimetic rivalry.
2. The marks of victimization: stereotypes like
marginality, physical deviations, monstrosity.
3. The transition from all to one: in the midst
of collective violence a rather arbitrary offence or stereotype leads to the
accusation of one individual, the scapegoat.
5. Mythological explanations erase the
historical social setting.
6. And I would like to add: the myth is
confirmed by religious intervention, the persecution is sanctioned by God. In Shakespeare´s
play first we experience the workings of divinity in the prophecies of the
former queen Margaret, secondly in the cursing of Richard by his own mother,
the duchess of
All the features mentioned can be applied to the
Tragedy of King Richard III by
Shakespeare. And I can prove it with an illustration.
As a result of the author´s theatrical
aesthetics, using scapegoat-signs from the Tudor tradition (Richard as a
monster in the physical and the moral sense) the audience takes his villainy
for granted, and receives his ruin in the end with pleasure and relief. So did
I as a drama-critic, writing on a Dutch production of the play with one of our
leading companies, Toneelgroep Amsterdam.
It was only after understanding mimetic theory that
I was able to acknowledge what had happened in the production and in my review.
Despite my critical distance as a journalist, I found myself totally on the
side of the persecutors, exactly as Girard describes, one of the naïve
followers, voicing the murderous crowd in the play (4).
Realising this, I understood the workings of
the play even better. To describe its scapegoating effect - the proof being
present in my own review - I will refrain definitely from the word catharsis.
Instead I would like to introduce in this case, or in any similar situation, a fresh
notion: mimetic satisfaction.
Within this notion I try to encompass the
mechanism which inflames not only the murderous crowd in the play but also the
audience during the production. The unanimity of the persecutors on stage
and us, the public, finds its expression in the climax. We do not leave the
theatre torn apart, mangled in our own choices. Nothing of the sort.
Of course dramatic motives are partly personal interpretations
in the spectators´ mind, but through the aesthetics of the theatre available in
this text, all our reactions agree on one point: Richard is guilty and his
death is completely justified. How does this come about?
STRUCTURE
Here
I would like to draw your attention to the general structure of drama. By my
training in drama theory and the history of theatre, teaching at the
a. Girard.
Since
you are familiar with the concept of mimetic rivalry, reciprocal violence and its
unchecked spreading to mimetic crisis - a symmetry of uncontrolled violence which
is only to be stopped by the use of a successful scapegoat - we can move on. As
Girard demonstrates, agreement concerning the obvious guilt of a arbitrary scapegoat
is decisive. A solution of the crisis is found in blaming and killing this
victim, who is seen as the ultimate criminal. In this way a new balance is
created, a new world.
b. Drama-theory.
In a theatre play the main action is about mental
development of the hero, the protagonist (5): a progress - or lack of progress –
confirming itself in the recognition of an error or in an act. The general structure
is marked by inciting force, a turning point and the climax.
The inciting force is a minor event from
outside, interfering with the protagonist´s dilemma (sharpening his problem or
ambition). Here begins the rising action,
during which the protagonist will overcome several obstacles and set-backs
(most of them the result of the actions of the antagonist).
The turning point is the most important decision
or behaviour of the protagonist, and this decision will eventually lead to the
outcome of the play. From that sharp-cut moment on we are part of the falling action. Events have only one
direction now: catastrophe is coming down and will crush the protagonist, unless….
In tragedy this results in a terrible downfall,
the climax. It is here that the catharsis
is experienced, not so much by the protagonist but above all by the audience.
It is our hope, pity and fear which is being modelled in the construction of
the theatrical arch.
c. Combining these notions, I invite you to
follow my thoughts:
The inciting force leads to the sharpening of
the hero´s mimetic desire. This makes him sensitive to the world of mimetic
rivalry. In the case of our play: Richards eldest brother, King Edward IV, suddenly
dies, leaving the throne vacant.
From here the rising action leads to the pinnacle of the mimetic crisis, the turning
point where the protagonist decides his course. This point is characterized by
a certain crime or trespassing, which exposes the protagonist as a potential
scapegoat. The existing mimetic symmetry transforms into asymmetry and
the focus of the action shifts definitely to only one agent: in Shakespeare´s
history play Richard of Gloucester who by blasphemy accepts the crown and
becomes King Richard III.
Now we experience the falling action, which includes the catastrophe coming down on the
protagonist. The protagonist/scapegoat is being sacrificed, since only he seems
responsible for the social upheaval. The antagonist forces have already joined
in one front of persecutors and King Richard is slain at the battle of
Bosworth.
CATHARSIS.
Indeed, drama is ritual. The most balanced pattern
can be found in Oedipus Rex. In the
falling action of Sophocles´ play we are torn apart by pity and fear. The
catharsis is unleashed at the climax, when Oedipus recognizes his guilt and
blinds himself. But before, as always in a dramatic structure, traces of
reciprocal rivalry have been evident in the rising action. Such collective
violence changes into individual desire concerning state control, kingship,
sexual admiration and so on. We witness this individual´s decision at the turning
point and become acquainted with his trespassing of the community´s laws. The
climax includes a recognition by the protagonist himself. This is necessary, since
a mimetic crisis will only be solved by full agreement. There seems to be an unmistakable
evidence of guilt and the protagonist accepts being sacrificed, which ends the
(hidden) mimetic crisis. In Oedipus Rex
this leads to enormous relief in the audience, because all responsibility for
unconscious patricide and incest is signified by the scapegoat. Though we did
identify with Oedipus and are torn apart in the drama questioning our own
motives, the guilt is taken from our shoulders.
In this way tragedy, Girard says, will always
contain awareness of collective violence and the danger of mimetic rivalry. In
the end, however, even a writer like Sophocles must submit to the need for total agreement and the need in the
audience for being cleansed. Being excused is a relief which goes together
with drama-aesthetics.
The crucial word here is ´in the end´. In
Oedipus Rex we witness a terrible agony in the protagonist during the falling
action. That´s why, when he accepts his destiny and punishes himself, we feel a
release of tension, called catharsis. His problem is ours, though he is
´guilty´. The change from symmetry to asymmetry feels adequate and not too
soon. But there are hints and stubborn irregularities, as René Girard and
Sander Goodhart have pointed out, that enable us to read the play against the
grain and to discover a mimetic conflict and a mimetic solution.
How can we picture the effect of Shakespeare´s
history on King Richard III? The difference, I dare say, lies in our experience of catharsis. In our play there
is no agony, no internal struggle to identify with. We know from the start who
the scapegoat is and witness his conscious exposure to criminal acts. Only in a
short moment at the very end of the play Richard reflects on his actions, but within
a couple of minutes he is vanquished and slain. And the audience is pleased.
Not torn apart, not even shaky. We are pleased, because the villain is punished
and everything is okay now. Justice has been reinstalled.
SHAKESPEARE´S DOUBLE STRATEGY
Although Girard acknowledges a double strategy
in Shakespeare´s text, serving on one plane the vindictive mob and on another
the more sophisticated parts of the audience, I didn´t find it in the play.
Perhaps this critical notion of Shakespeare´s can
be applied to four histories together: Henry VI, part 1, 2 and 3 with Richard
III as the closing part. Then there is a sense of repetition in the power game,
always pushing a new king to the foreground, killing off the former one. Such a
mimetic coherence certainly affords a ´romanesque´ dimension. But within the Tragedy of King Richard III there is no
double strategy, offering the simple parts of the audience the excitement of
the public execution and at the same time mirroring the educated classes their
mechanisms of rivalry. That crucial notion is missing. Studying the text one
can hardly uncover a comparable double strategy as Girard demonstrated (6) in
the Merchant of Venice. With regard
to the Christians in
Analysing in the same chapter Shakespeare´s
history on Richard III, Girard attests to the power game of Elizabeth I and the
remarkable longing for ´evil´ in the female characters in the play. But in my
opinion an effective double strategy is wishful thinking. It was simply not
possible for three reasons:
1.
Censorship, in this
particular case of justification of the Tudor reign, would never have allowed
it.
2.
The pleasure of Tudor and
Jacobean aristocracy is evoked by their own ancestors on stage, making the
´right´ political choice, siding with
3.
Melodrama does not carry the
seeds of a contrary vision. The text positions Richard as a self-declared
villain and no development in this view is offered during the play.
CONCLUSIONS
Though
historical evidence points to political and military upheavals by the nobility of
the time, and even the danger of civil war which Richard averted by becoming
king, this collective dimension of 15th century violence in
Shakespeare´s art is effective. In the Tragedy of King Richard III the rise and
fall of the Tudor-enemy is being enacted, culminating in the climax where this charming
monster, this symbol of Evil, is wiped out - so that peace can be restored by a
new king who creates a new tree of lineage. Hence the dawn of a celebrated
period of humankind, where Richard III as the ultimate ´troublemaker´ and murdered
god may rise again in film and on stage. The villain gets the better tunes. Needless
to say, staging the play through the centuries has engraved this specific
ritual. Scapegoating Richard III has become a habit. In that light I draw your
attention to the films by Laurence Olivier in the sixties and by Loncraine and
McKellen in the nineties. And almost every theatre production, up to the recent
RSC performance with Richard as a corrupt sheik in de Middle East.
So, my effort to read Shakespeare´s King Richard III against the grain amounts
to the assumption that this is a very long way to go, because:
- the
play is not a tragedy
- it
uses a stringent political myth
- it
has the features of a persecution-text
- it
offers no catharsis but mimetic satisfaction.
I do agree with Girard that we should discover
and expose our own need to create enemies, sacrificing them in order to feel freed
from ambiguous complicity. Let´s investigate that need also in art. Otherwise
we never will be able to stop debunking Richard III.
ELS
LAUNSPACH
Questions still to be studied:
1)
Commercial drama in our
modern culture (including films, television, opera, choreography, clips) seems
to fulfil a need for public punishment which in former times was furnished at
the market-place. Easy labels of ´good´ and ´evil´ produce mimetic satisfaction
rather than catharsis in the Aristotelian sense.
2)
If ´romanesque´ literature
reveals mimetic mechanisms to the thoughtful reader, tragedy does the same to
the attentive audience in the theatre.
3)
Is it possible to
deconstruct ´scapegoating´ in a persecution text by means of production in the
theatre: acting, light, sound, scenery and so on? And to what extent can we
balance these efforts with our need for a mimetic resolution?
Footnotes
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) René Girard, A Theatre of Envy.
2) René Girard, The Scapegoat,
3) The Mitchell Beazley´s pocket companion to Shakespeare´s Plays.
4) See my review in Dutch, Medeplichtig aan terreur. In: Toneel Theatraal 1994 and Theaterschrift Lucifer.
5) Of course the male form applies as
much as the female.
6) To entrap the wisest. In: A Theatre of Envy, chapter 28.