A New-historicism Study Of Shakespeare’s Richard Ⅲ

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is one of the most remarkable poets andplaywrights the world was ever known. His complete works include38plays,154sonnets and2narrative poems. And his ten history plays consist of nearly one third ofhis complete drama. Richard Ⅲ was written in1593under the title The Tragedy ofKing Richard the Third.Its principal episodes take place from the death of Henry Ⅵ in1571to the deathof Richard in1485which shows the whole process of his seizing the throne,coronation and death in the war in Bosworth Field.This thesis consists four body chapters apart from the introduction and theconclusion. Chapter one centers on the historical sources of Shakespeare’s RichardⅢ—Thomas More’s The History of Richard Third. Reducing the historical context ofthe text, Chapter two cares about the relationship between Richard Ⅲ and itshistorical resources and displays Shakespeare’s participation in the construction ofhistory on his own position through the textual reach about the divergence betweenthe play and its historical record. The previous chapters show the “textuality ofhistory”. Chapter three discusses the relationship between the play and the last tenyears political situation in era of Elizabeth Ⅰ, shows the parallel between significantfactional strife, competition among politicians in the play and the struggle in politicalevents and politicians at that time, and points out the interactions between this playand the political situation at that time.. Chapter four explores the similarities andcorrespondence between the protagonist Richard Ⅲ and Robert Cecil, the politicalcelebrity at that time, and displays literary texts’ construction to history, political andculture. The last two chapters uncover the “historicity of text”. Based on the analysisof body chapters, this paper draws the conclusion that Richard Ⅲ is a productionbased on “textuality of history” and “historicity of text”, it shapes the history bywhich it is shaped. This work seems as a historical play of England; however, it has acomplicated motivation which reveals the political struggle in the last ten years in Elizabeth I Era. Shakespearean captured the political circumstance and demonstratedhis stand in the play. He not only displayed the past but also intervened the presentduring his creation.