17 Nov 2020
For this post (at least 300 words, total, not including quotes), complete Parts A and B. Include a quote relevant information from one of the Norton introductions.
Part A
Sselect one of the following quotations. Identify the speaker, the situation, and include the act, scene, and line citation for the passage. Examine the scene and context in which this passage occurs in the play, and write a concise analysis of how this passage reveals and conveys major themes in the play. (Need I say, show off your close reading skills?)
- Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
. . .
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
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.
And if King Edward be as true and just
As I am subtle, false and treacherous,
This day should Clarence closely be mewed up
About a prophecy which says that ‘G’
Of Edward’s heirs the murderer shall be.
Dive, thoughts, down to my soul: here Clarence comes. - Set down, set down your honourable load,
If honour may be shrouded in a hearse,
Whilst I a while obsequiously lament
Th’untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.
Poor key-cold figure of a holy king,
Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster,
Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood;
Be it lawful that I invocate thy ghost,
To hear the lamentations of Poor Anne,
Wife to thy Edward, to thy slaughter’d son,
Stabb’d by the selfsame hand that made these wounds.
Lo, in these windows that let forth thy life,
I pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes.
O cursed be the hand that made these holes,
Cursed be the blood that let this blood from hence,
Cursed be the heart that had the heart to do it.
More direful hap betide that hated wretch
That makes us wretched by the death of thee
Than I can wish to wolves, spiders, toads,
Or any creeping venom’d thing that lives.
If ever he have child, abortive be it,
Prodigious, and untimely brought to light,
Whose ugly and unnatural aspect
May fright the hopeful mother at the view,
And that be heir to his unhappiness.
If ever he have wife, let her be made
More miserable by the death of him
Than I am made by my young lord and thee. - Was ever woman in this humour wooed?
Was ever woman in this humour won?
I’ll have her; but I will not keep her long.
What, I that killed her husband and his father,
To take her in her heart’s extremest hate,
With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,
The bleeding witness of her hatred by;
Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me,
And I no friends to back my suit withal
But the plain devil and dissembling looks —
And yet to win her, all the world to nothing? Ha!
Part B
Answer the following questions about the Richard III film that you watched.
- Which film did you watch?
- What did you find most interesting about this film?
- Describe one or two scenes in the film that altered or enhanced how you interpreted Shakespeare’s original play text of Richard III. Explain how the film influenced your ideas.