Richard III - AO5 Readings

Question 1

Gilbert and Gubar

Answer 1

Women throughout the nineteenth century and prior to this were polarised as either ‘passive angels’ or ‘active monsters’

Question 2

Introduction, Arden Shakespeare

Answer 2

As far as I know, the limp begins with Shakespeare

Question 3

Freud

Answer 3

We all demand reparation for early wounds to out narcissism, our self-love

Question 4

Kevin Spacey

Answer 4

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

Question 5

Shirley Galloway

Answer 5

The women of this play function as voices of protest and morality

Question 6

Harold Bloom

Answer 6

Shakespeare shocks by rendering us incapable of resisting Richard’s terrifying charms

Question 7

Nina Levine

Answer 7

Elizabeth functions as a positive symbol of maternal heroism and aggression, battling for her children rather than herself

Question 8

E M W Tillyard

Answer 8

The simultaneous change in Richard from accomplished villain to the despairing embodiment of evil

Question 9

Dowden

Answer 9

[Richard] inverts the moral order of things, and tries to live in this inverted system