| Drawing on a wide range of source materials, e.g. parliamentary rolls of the 15th century, private letters written by Richardâ…¢, popular ballads, and Elizabethan plays, the author seeks to understand the early modern representations of the Richard III story in their original context, and to trace the influence of the social discourses that were shaping the early modern mind.While comparing literary sources with historical documents, the author notices that in both historical and literary works on Richardâ…¢, certain ideal models were followed by early modern writers. Interestingly, their idealizing tendency was also shared by the historical characters which they wrote about. The author contends that the pursuit of the "ideal" in writing had given history its literary quality, and literature its artistic quality. The same process made history deviate from reality, and art transcend reality.Some writers looked for the ideal format. Historians such as Dominic Mancini and Sir Thomas More arranged and organized their narratives on Richard III after classical models, for the sake of a more coherent and reasonable account. Poets, like the authors of the Mirror for Magistrates, aspired to moralist ideals, and sought to expound the shifty fortunes of mortal men by the working of divine justice.Shakespeare seemed to be less concerned with extracting historical morals than with the perfection of his work. He joined reason with reality to reach an artistic ideal. In his Henry VI, Part 3 and Richardâ…¢, he constructed tightly knitted causal chains throughout the life of George, Duke of Clarence and that of Richard, Duke of Gloucester. The logic scheme running through turbulent historical events gives a structural orderliness to his drama.Moreover, in Richard's own time, Richardâ…¢himself and his political rivals had been busily engaged in fashioning themselves towards the ideals of their time, so that both parties might be justified in their own right. Most often they fashioned themselves up to the image of the ideal Christian. In his private prayers, Richardâ…¢tried desperately to appear on God's side. One of Richard's victims, the Earl of Rivers left a ballad and a will before his death, in which he rendered himself clear of conscience, and submissive to God's will. Apart from that, since the early 17th century, writers such as Sir George Buck and Horace Walpole began to challenge the Tudor tradition, and endeavored to model Richard towards a new, positive ideal:that of a merciful and noble prince.The historical and literary interpretations of Richardâ…¢have improvised upon the original Richard III and modified his image. Meanwhile readers witness the process through which King Richard evolved from an unnamable mystery into clear-shaped ideas:to begin with, the stories of Richardâ…¢came from a discursive origin. They sprang from rumours. The first written story about Richard's usurpation, Dominic Mancini's Usurpation of Richardâ…¢(1483) was mainly derived from hearsay. In England, Sir Thomas More's History of King Richard the Third (1513) was noteworthy for its heavy reliance on rumours. Then it was upon the collection of Tudor rumours that Shakespeare built his arch-villain Richardâ…¢, whose unfailing energy resides in that it is an idealized picture of human iniquity. That picture, deprived of ambiguities and irrelevancies, exists as pure essence, and therefore is capable of communicating through time, and across cultures.While all this is happening, the "real" Richardâ…¢lies in illusive and scattered forms among records and documents. Of this mysterious figure it is difficult to retrieve a complete portrayal. A "complete" portrait perhaps can only be found in his literary counterpart. Shakespeare's crowned villain had acquired a separate identity from his historical origin, and had got the upper hand of the real person. Richardâ…¢on the Elizabethan stage achieved more popularity than King Richard ever lived to enjoy; and indeed Tudor history had long prospered on the presumption of Richard's wickedness. It was the daubed image of Richard III that actually functioned, and helped history going forward. This perhaps is a cynical implication of King Richard's story:what was said about a man matters more than what he really was. In the study, "idealized" representations of Richardâ…¢are juxtaposed with the "un-ideal" reality in historical documents, to give a fair display of the differences by the contrast. Some original discoveries are made in the course of research. For example, by showing the information conveyed in a petition of Richard Duke of Gloucester in the parliament of 1478, the author managed to make clearer Richard's real stance in the trial of George Duke of Clarence. Also, by showing the evidence that two 15th century poems already contains the key concepts of the "Tudor Myth" the author provides a new interpretation of the myth-making movement and of Shakespeare's role in the process:the real mythmakers were the English people of the 15th and 16th centuries, whilst Shakespeare's work captured people's imagination of a whole century by giving it an ideal expression. |
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