THE AMERICAN SHAKESPEARE CENTER
STUDY GUIDE
Richard III
1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
6
Inside This Guide
10
Shakespeare Timeline
12
Shakespeare's Staging Conditions
13
Playgoer's Guide
14
Stuff That Happens
15
Who's Who
17
Character Connections
18
Discovery Space Questions
19
The Dramaturg’s Corner
115
121
127
22
Getting Them on Their Feet
24
Line Assignments
130
133
136
26
First 100 Lines
28
Choices
32
Verse and Prose
41
Handout #1 – Scansion Guidelines
43
Paraphrasing
138
140
144
147
149
150
Teacher’s Guide
Staging Challenges: Stage Directions
(Scene Considered: Act One)
Handout #7A-B – Stage Directions,
Handout #7C-D – Modern Directions
Rhetoric: Stichomythia
(Scene Considered: 1.2)
Handout #8A-B – Cue Scripts
Teacher’s Guide
Textual Variants: Quarto and Folio
(Scene Considered: 2.3)
Handout #9 – Quarto & Folio Texts
Teacher’s Guide
Staging Challenges: Enter the Ghosts
(Scene Considered: 5.3)
Handout #10 – Text of 5.3
Teacher’s Guide
Perspectives: Richard’s Reputation
Handout #11 – Historical Sources
ShakesFear Classroom Activity: Editing
Production Choices
45
Wordle
151
Student Handout #12 – Doubling
48
R.O.A.D.S. to Rhetoric
156
Student Handout #13 – Script Prep
54
Handout #2 – R.O.A.D.S. Guidelines
158
Student Handout #14 – Line Count
61
The Elizabethan Classroom
159
Film in the Classroom
64
Classroom Diagram
162
SOL Guidelines
68
Asides and Audience Contact
165
Core Curriculum Standards
71
Handout #3 – Asides Diagram
166
Bibliography
72
Teacher's Guide – Asides Diagram
Basics
94
100
102
108
113
Classroom Exploration of Richard III
75
78
80
86
88
89
Rhetoric: Richard and the Audience
(Scenes Considered: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 5.5)
Handout #4A-B –Monologues
Teacher’s Guide
Perspectives: Cursing
(Scenes Considered: 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 3.3,
3.4, 4.1, 4.4, 5.1, 5.5)
Handout #5 – Margaret’s Curse
Handout #6A-E – Prophecy
2
THE BASICS
Verse and Prose
VERSE
Shakespeare wrote most of the verse in his plays in iambic pentameter, a style consisting of ten syllables per line –
five metrical feet, each consisting of one unstressed and one stressed syllable. The process of marking the stresses
in a line is called scansion. By writing plays in iambic pentameter, Shakespeare was, in a way, directing the actors of
his company. By scanning the lines themselves, your students can discover those directions and the opportunities
for choice embedded within the text. Scansion is a valuable tool for both scholars and actors, because determining
where the stresses go can reveal much not only about how the line might be delivered and about character, but also
about what words in the line are most important. Scansion can also aid your students with the pronunciation of
unfamiliar words.
In this active physical and vocal demonstration of Iambic Pentameter, students will gain an understanding of the
placement of the stress, feminine line endings, and the importance meter plays in the performance and
understanding of early modern plays.
PROSE
Your students may initially fear verse far more than prose; after all, prose is the form that dominates their reading
elsewhere, in novels, textbooks, magazines, and online. In Shakespeare, however, prose may actually be more
difficult for your students to work with, since prose is more likely to be heavy with colloquialism, and its rhythms
are more likely to be idiosyncratic to a particular character’s way of speaking. When working through a prose
section of a play, therefore, your students will need to look for different indications of rhythm than they do in verse:
● Identifying Prose from Verse: Depending on how your text is laid out, your students may have trouble
distinguishing verse from prose at first glance – and may end up trying to scan their prose lines for iambic
meter. The shortcut is this: in most texts, the first word of each verse line is capitalized, while prose lines,
written as normal sentences, do not capitalize the first word after a line break.
● Sentence Length: Have your students go through the block of prose and find all of the sentence breaks. Are
the sentences short and concise? Or does the character run on, linking many clauses together? How much
variation is there in the length of the sentences?
● Unfinished Thoughts: Have your students identify the subject of each independent clause, then determine
where that thought reaches completion -- or if it does.
● Questions: Does the speaker ask questions? Does anyone answer them?
● Interruptions: Does the speaker interrupt himself, or does someone else interrupt him?
● Shifts in Focus: When does the speaker change the subject? Does it come as part of an interruption?
Working with Verse and Prose
○ Divide your students into groups. How many and how large will depend on your class size.
○ Assign each group a small section (10-20) lines of the First 100 Lines to scan.
○ Work through these lines as a class.
3
Verse and Prose - First 100 Lines
1.1
Enter RICHARD, Duke of Gloucester, solus
The first 100 lines of this play are tremendously irregular. If you would like to
introduce your students to regular iambic pentameter before having them attack the
challenge of so much irregularity, we suggest using Anne’s first 10 lines in 1.2. This
will then provide a point of comparison so that your students will see just how
unusual Richard’s speech is.
RICHARD
' ˘ ˘ ' ˘ '
˘ ' ˘ '
Now is | the win|ter of | our dis|content
˘
' ˘ '
˘ ' ˘ '
˘ '
Made glor|ious sum|mer by | this sun | of York;
˘ '
˘
'
˘
'
˘ '
˘
'
And all | the clouds | that lour'd | upon | our house
˘ ˘
'
' ˘ '
˘ '
˘ '
In the | deep bos|om of | the o|cean buried.
'
˘
˘ '
'
˘
˘ ' ˘
'
Now are | our brows | bound with | victor|ious wreaths;
˘
' ˘ '
˘
'
˘ ' ˘ '
Our bruis|ed arms | hung up | for mon|uments;
˘
'
˘ ' ˘
'
˘ ' ˘ ' ˘
Our stern | alar|ums changed | to mer|ry meetings,
˘
' ˘
'
˘ '
˘ ' ˘
' ˘
Our dread|ful march|es to | delight|ful measures.
'
'
˘
'
˘
'
˘
'
˘
'
Grim-vis|aged war | hath smooth'd | his wrink|led front;
˘
'
˘ '
˘
'
˘ '
˘ '
And now, | instead | of mount|ing bard|ed steeds
˘ '
˘
'
˘ ' ˘ ' ˘ ' ˘
To fright | the souls | of fear|ful ad|versaries,
˘ '
˘ ' ˘ ' ˘ ' ˘
' ˘
He cap|ers nimb|ly in | a la|dy's chamber
˘ '
˘ ' ˘
'
˘ ' ˘ '
To the | lasciv|ious pleas|ing of | a lute.
˘ '
˘ '
˘
'
˘
'
˘ '
But I, | that am | not shaped | for sport|ive tricks,
˘
'
˘ '
˘ '
˘
' ˘
'
Nor made | to court | an am|orous look|ing-glass;
' ˘
˘ ' ˘
'
˘ '
'
' ˘ '
I, that | am rude|ly stamp'd, | and want | love's ma|jesty
˘ '
˘ ' ˘ '
˘ ' ˘
'
To strut | before | a want|on amb|ling nymph;
' ˘
' ˘
' ˘
˘ '
˘ ' ˘
I, that | am cur|tail'd of | this fair | proportion,
' ˘ ˘ ' ˘ '
˘ '
˘
' ˘
Cheated | of feat|ure by | dissem|bling nature,
˘ '
˘ ' ˘
'
˘ '
˘ '
Deformed, | unfin|ish'd, sent | before | my time
˘ '
˘
'
˘
'
˘
'
˘
'
Into | this breath|ing world, | scarce half | made up,
The play opens with a trochee. How does this
affect the rhythm and pacing right from the start? Could
the line work as an iamb?
Can “glorious” be a 3-syllable word? Why or why
not? How does that affect the rhythm of the rest of the
line?
5
The construction of this line is unusual: a pyrrhic
(two unstressed syllables) followed by a spondee (two
stressed syllables). While spondees may occur on their
own in a line (see line 9), pyrrhics rarely appear without
accompanying spondees, to maintain the balance of
stresses in the line.
Note the somewhat unusual mid-line trochee.
Richard uses these more than they typically occur in
blank verse.
10
Richard's lines also have a lot of feminine endings,
as in lines 7, 8, 11, and 12. How does this affect the
rhythm of his speech?
Note that “amorous”, usually 3 syllables, has to
elide to “am’rous” in order for “looking-glass” to scan
correctly.
15
This line is an alexandrine, a six-foot line, which
opens with a trochee and has a spondee in the 5th foot,
giving it an overall "heavy" feel.
20
Depending on the pronunciation of "proportion",
this line could either be a feminine ending or an
alexandrine. Try it both ways; which suits the rhythm
better?
Could the fourth foot be a spondee?
4
RHETORIC AND FIGURES OF SPEECH
Richard and the Audience
Rhetoric [ret-er-ik], n. 1. The art or science of all specialized literary uses of
language in prose or verse, including the figures of speech. 2. The study of the
effective use of language. 3. The ability to use language effectively.
Through the use of rhetorical devices (or figures of speech), Shakespeare provides a map to help an actor figure
out how to play a character and to communicate the story of the play to the audience. These devices may provide
clues to meaning, may indicate how a character’s mind works, or may audibly point the audience towards important
concepts in a character’s speech. Rhetoric is one of many tools an actor can use to discover playable moments in a
speech or in dialogue. For example, a character who uses ellipsis, leaving out part of a sentence to force the other
characters or audience members to complete it in their minds, might be forging a bond, or he might simply be in a
hurry.
Richard III is one of Shakespeare’s great villain-allies of the audience. Like Iago in Othello, Richard spends a
significant amount of time alone on stage with the audience, and he uses that time to build a relationship with them.
The audience watches Richard lie, cheat, and murder his way through the play – but however many deceptions he
perpetrates, he never lies to the audience. Instead, he lets them in on all of his plans, telling them quite plainly what
he intends to do and how he is going to do it – and then he proceeds to do so. That Richard shares his plans in this
way makes the audience not only his confidantes but also his accomplices, aware of his crimes and yet unable to
stop them from happening, and thus complicit in his wrongdoing.
In a certain light, Richard's problems really begin when he stops trusting the audience; when he ascends the throne
and no longer confides even in us, he also loses the ability to persuade anyone else (as seen in his rather lackluster
attempt to rally his troops in 5.3). This isolation is critically important in Richard’s decision to kill his nephews, a
decision he does not discuss with the audience. The distance he creates releases the audience from complicity in that
crime. Richard unintentionally manumits us from his service, allowing us to switch our allegiance to the Earl of
Richmond. The only time after his coronation that Richard does have significant time with the audience is
immediately following his dreams of ghosts haunting him. In that monologue, his glib tongue fails him entirely, and
he spends more time talking to himself than to the audience. In the breakdown of his crafty rhetoric, the audience
also sees the breakdown of his confidence.
In this activity, your students will explore how Shakespeare crafts the relationship between Richard and the
audience and how that relationship changes throughout the play.
Activity
Step #1: Logos, Pathos, and Ethos
 Discuss the three basic forms of persuasive appeal: logos, pathos, and ethos.
o Logos: the appeal to reason. The speaker presents facts and suggests interpretations of them based on
logical thought processes.
 Aristotle wished that all communication could take this form, but, owing to the frailties of
human nature, he conceded the need for pathos and ethos.
 Does logos always have to be truthful? Or can a speaker create a very rational, very logical
argument using false information? Or twist truthful facts into a misleading interpretation?
 You may wish to discuss common logical fallacies ( see
http://www.theskepticsguide.org/resources/logicalfallacies.aspx for a guide)
5
1.2
RICHARD
~
Was ever woman in this humour woo'd?
~
Was ever woman in this humour won?
-------------------------
I'll have her; but I will not keep her long.
~
What? I, [that kill'd 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,
S – rhetorical questions
R – “Was ever woman in this humour”
R – structure (of rhetorical question)
R – “w”
D – arranging contrast
S – rhetorical question
A – explanatory
R – “h”
R – structure
D – arranging a series
D – arranging a series
And I nothing to back my suit at all,
[But the plain devil and dissembling looks]?
A – corrective
And yet to win her? All the world to nothing.
Ha!
~~~~~~~~~~
Hath she forgot already that brave prince,
S – description for name
[Edward], [her lord], whom I, [some three months since],
A – additional descriptors
A – explanatory
Stabb'd in my angry mood at Tewksbury?
O - understatement
A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman,
------------------------------------[Framed in the prodigality of nature,
---------------------------------------
Young, valiant, wise, and, [no doubt], right royal],
A – descriptors
D – arranging series
A – parenthetical
The spacious world cannot again afford
And will she yet debase her eyes on me,
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[That cropp'd the golden prime of this sweet prince,
~
And made her widow to a woful bed]?
~
On me, whose all not equals Edward's moiety?
S – euphemistic for “murdered”
S – rhetorical question
A – explanatory
S – rhetorical question
O – “And will she yet debase her eyes”
6
PERSPECTIVES
Cursing
Richard III is full of cursing, and we don’t mean expletives and profanities. Throughout the play, various characters
swear vengeance, call down retribution from heaven, and hurl invectives – usually at Richard, though other
characters suffer the verbal abuse as well. These curses – and their fulfillments – form a repeating chorus
throughout the play, echoing from the first act all the way through to the moment of Richard’s downfall.
Shakespeare introduces this concept to us in the first scene, when Richard and Clarence discuss the obsession with
prophecy that leads Edward to condemn Clarence to death (see your First 100 Lines for this moment).
These curses are related to several rhetorical figures developed by classical authors and known in early modern
England. In his Garden of Eloquence, first published in 1577, Henry Peacham discusses the use of several figures
which resemble the various curses in Richard III. Ara or imprecatio, “by which the Orator detesteth, and curseth some
person or thing, for the evils which they bring with them, or for the wickedness which is in them”, and cataplexis or
comminatio, “by which the Orator denounceth a threatening against some person, people, city, common wealth or
country, containing and declaring the certainty or likelihood of plagues, or punishments to fall upon them for their
wickedness, impiety, insolence, and general iniquity,” were figures often used by the clergy and in the law courts.
This association gives the prophetic curses in Richard III a heavier weight than mere insults. The language also
separates these curses from those associated with witchcraft; they call on God, rather than Satan, and aim to punish
wickedness and vice, rather than encourage it.
In these activities, your students will explore the role that cursing plays in Richard III, as well as examining the
vocabulary and structure of the curses.
Activity 1 – Margaret
Though Margaret is far from the only character in Richard III who lays down curses and prophecies, she is probably
the most famous queen of invective language. In Act One, scene three, she lambasts the entire Yorkist dynasty and
all who support it, and while she aims particular venom at the Queen who usurped her place, Elizabeth, Margaret
reserves her most vivid language for that “elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog,” Richard. She calls down woe and
misery for Queen Elizabeth and her kin, and she rightly predicts that Richard will turn on his allies and cause their
deaths. Later in the play, after most of those curses have come to fulfillment with the deaths of the princes and
several of the Queen’s kinsmen, Margaret reappears, and Elizabeth and the dowager Duchess of York beg her to
teach them how to curse as effectively as she does.
Unlike much of the material in the three parts of Henry VI and in Richard III, these scenes have no historical
precedent, either in fact or in Tudor propaganda. Holinshed admits, as do other sources, that Queen Margaret lived
first in prison in the Tower, then under house arrest before King Louis ransomed here, whereupon she returned to
France. The idea that she would have been let loose in England to skulk about royal residences and to insert herself
into privileged conversations is flatly preposterous. So why does Shakespeare include these scenes?


Give your students Handout #5 - Margaret’s Curse
Have your students perform a metrical and rhetorical analysis of Margaret’s speeches. (You may wish to
divide them into five groups and assign each group a type of device, as in R.O.A.D.S. to Rhetoric, page
48).
o Your Teacher's Guide (page 94) contains marked-up versions of the text for both scansion and
rhetorical analysis. These versions are only suggestions and guidelines, and are neither exclusive nor
7
TEXTUAL VARIANTS
Quarto and Folio
As a teacher, you are in possession of one of the best-kept secrets in the world of Shakespeare scholarship and
education: There is no single, definitive, or universally accepted version of any of William Shakespeare’s plays. The plays as they
appear in your textbooks are the result of hundreds of years of influence from editors and printers. Long before
publishing companies began editing and translating texts for the modern English readers, printers had to decipher
hand-written cue scripts to approximate what appeared in the ever-changing performance scripts and on stage in
performance. Needless to say, printers sometimes made errors, and their changes and translations mean that what
we now know as Shakespeare actually contains a lot of people’s input.
Our primary texts for Shakespeare’s plays come from the 1623 Folio, compiled by John Heminges and Henry
Condell. About half of his plays, however, were first printed in quarto form – more like mass market paperbacks
than like hardcovers. Richard III is one of those plays which has an earlier quarto edition. In fact, Richard III was so
popular that it was printed six times between 1597 and 1623. Each of these quartos drew from the first quarto, but
the Folio edition of the play seems to have originated with a different manuscript. The Folio text is longer, closer to
the historical sources of Edward Hall and Raphael Holinshed, and has more regular meter. Recent scholars have
suggested that the quarto text may be a reconstruction of some sort.
In this activity, your students will examine a scene which illustrates the textual differences between the quarto and
Folio versions of Richard III.
Activity



Give your students Handout #9, the Folio and Quarto versions of 2.3 of Richard III.
Have your students search the text for differences between the two editions, with attention to the following:
o Changes in speech prefixes.
o Changes in vocabulary.
o Changes in punctuation.
o Changes in line breaks.
o Your Teacher's Guide (page 133) has variations highlighted.
Discuss:
o How do these changes affect the scene and the characters?
o How might these changes affect delivery of lines?
o Do any of the changes affect the scansion? Is it more regular or irregular in the Quarto or the Folio?
o Do any of the changes seem to be just plain compositor errors?
o Have your students speculate on possible reasons for the changes. What conditions could lead to
small deviations? What conditions could lead to larger alterations?
 For comparison, you may wish to look at scenes which include large blocks of text not
present in one version or the other. 1.2, 2.2., 3.5, 3.7, 4.1, and 4.4 all have large sections in
the Folio that are not in the Quarto; 4.2 contains the only large block of text in the Quarto
not included in the Folio.
8
STAGING CHALLENGES
Enter the Ghosts
One of the potentially trickier staging moments in Richard III comes just before the final battle, when a series of
ghosts troops in to Richard and to Henry, Earl of Richmond, both asleep on stage. Not only does this scene require
a large number of cast members and a treatment of the supernatural element, but the ritualistic nature of the ghosts’
alternating curses and blessings could come off as trite, repetitive, or just plain lacking in dramatic interest if handled
poorly. Handled well, however, the scene can be a powerful build-up to the final battle.
Shakespeare took his inspiration for the scene from popular tradition surrounding the Battle of Bosworth Field. As
Raphael Holinshed tells us in his Chronicles:
The fame went that he had the same night a dreadful and terrible dream, for it
seemed to him, being asleep, that he did see diverse images like terrible devils,
which pulled and haled him, not suffering him to take any quiet or rest. The
which strange vision had not so suddenly struck his heart with a sudden fear but
it stuffed his head and troubled his mind with many busy and dreadful
imaginations. For incontinent after, his heart being almost damped, he
prognosticated before the doubtful chance of the battle to come, not using the
alacrity and mirth of mind and countenance as he was accustomed to do before
he came toward the battle.
For Shakespeare’s original audience, the ghosts not only served to heighten emotions towards the climax of the
play, they also gave Richard III a touch of the revenge tragedy genre, in which ghosts frequently demand vengeance
from living men. In popular superstition, the spirits of the dead who had been wronged in life or had suffered
violent ends could return to walk the earth; good angels and evil demons could also assume the shapes of men or
animals either to bless or to tempt the living. If your students are skeptical about the effectiveness of this scene on
stage or disdainful of early modern superstitions, remind them of the popularity of movies and TV shows like The
Sixth Sense, the Paranormal Activity series, and Ghost Hunters). Ghosts remain as compelling a plot device (and perhaps
as plausible a reality) today as they were in the early modern period.
In this activity, your students will explore the staging possibilities presented by the visitation of the ghosts.
Activity
 Give your students Handout #10, 5.3 of Richard III.
 First, decide where to place both Richard and Henry on the stage. The directions from the Folio seem to
indicate that each man has a tent set up on the stage, which other characters “enter to” – suggesting that
neither Richard nor Henry uses the discovery space, as would be more usual for staging both the interior
and exterior of a tented location.
 Next, compile a cast list for the scene.
o You will need Richard, Henry, eleven ghosts, and lords to enter to Richmond’s tent at the end of the
scene.
o You may want to take this moment to discuss the implications of this scene for casting and doubling
the play as a whole. (See Production Choices, page 150, for more). Richard’s long monologue
leaves time for any of the ghosts to double as the lords that enter to either Richard or Henry, but do
the ghosts imply that none of those now-deceased characters could double with each other?
 Stage the scene, addressing the following considerations:
9
Teacher’s Guide – Enter the Ghosts
Richard III, 5.3
Shakespeare’s original audience might have
recognized the character, or at least the costume, from
earlier productions of Henry VI, Part 3. How can you create
recognition of the character as Prince Edward for an
audience who does not have that frame of reference?
Enter the Ghost of Prince Edward, son to King Henry VI
Ghost of Prince Edward
To KING RICHARD III
Let me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrow.
Think, how thou stab'dst me in my prime of youth
At Tewksbury: despair, therefore, and die.
To RICHMOND
Be cheerful, Richmond; for the wronged souls
Of butcher'd princes fight in thy behalf
King Henry's issue, Richmond, comforts thee.
5
Notice, throughout the scene, how often the ghosts
speak their own names or titles or Richmond’s name or title.
What sort of spell- or invocation-like power might this call
on?
Enter the Ghost of King Henry VI
Ghost of King Henry VI
When I was mortal, my anointed body
By thee was punched full of deadly holes
Think on the Tower and me: despair, and die;
Harry the Sixth bids thee despair, and die.
Consider what information the ghosts give about their
deaths. Can this information be incorporated into costumes
or makeup in any way?
10
Henry VI not only repeats Edward’s “despair and die”
(as all the ghosts will do), but repeats it twice himself. What
informs the reiteration? How can your actor give a different
or stronger meaning to the second use of the phrase?
To RICHMOND
Virtuous and holy, be thou conqueror.
Harry, that prophesied thou shouldst be king,
Doth comfort thee in thy sleep: live, and flourish.
Enter the Ghost of CLARENCE
Ghost of CLARENCE
Let me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrow.
I, that was wash'd to death with fulsome wine,
Poor Clarence, by thy guile betrayed to death:
To-morrow in the battle think on me,
And fall thy edgeless sword: despair, and die.
15
Point out that Clarence calls on reconciliation between
the warring houses. Might he be wearing a white rose (the
Yorkist symbol)?
To RICHMOND
Thou offspring of the house of Lancaster
The wronged heirs of York do pray for thee
Good angels guard thy battle; live and flourish.
Notice that Clarence (as other ghosts that follow will
as well) repeats Edward’s first line as well as the “despair
and die” refrain.
20
Enter the Ghosts of RIVERS, GREY, and VAUGHAN
Clarence also turns Henry VI’s “live and flourish”
into a refrain for Richmond.
10