![]() ![]() Shakespeare famously portrays him as a "deformed hunchback" who ruthlessly lies, murders, and manipulates his way to throne before being taken down by the guy who becomes King Henry VII (whose reign ends the Wars of the Roses and ushers in the Tudor dynasty). The play then chronicles Richard's dramatic rise and fall. All of England is celebrating.except for Edward's youngest brother, Richard, who tells us straight away that he's "determined to prove a villain" and will do anything to get his hands on the crown. ![]() ![]() As Richard III opens, the Yorkist King Edward IV and his two bros have bumped the Lancastrian King Henry VI off the throne. 1455-1485), a series of English civil wars fought between two branches of the Royal House of Plantagenet: the Lancasters (whose heraldic symbol was the red rose) and the Yorks (symbolized by the white rose). The play picks up toward the end of the Wars of the Roses (c. Although it's the final installment in a group of history plays known as the "first tetralogy" (including Henry VI Part 1, and Part 2, and Part 3), Richard III can stand on its own. ![]() Since its first performance around 1592, this play has been one of Shakespeare's most frequently performed and best-loved works. If you thought Hamlet's King Claudius was the worst brother in literary history, or that Othello's Iago was the most unapologetic villain onstage, or that Macbeth was Shakespeare's biggest tyrant of a king, then you haven't read Richard III. Read the full text of Richard III with a side-by-side translation HERE. ![]()
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