Richard III (Norton Critical Editions) [Paperback]

William Shakespeare (Author), Thomas Cartelli (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0393929590 | ISBN-13: 978-0393929591 | Publication Date: December 19, 2008

In The Tragedy of King Richard III, Shakespeare chronicles the rise and fall of one of history’s most repellent, and the theater’s most mesmerizing, figures.

This Norton Critical Edition of Richard III is based on the First Quarto (1597) edition of the play with interpolations from the First Folio (1623). The play is accompanied by a preface, explanatory annotations, A Note on the Text, a list of Textual Variants, and eighteen illustrations of seminal scenes from major dramatic productions and film versions of the play.

“Contexts” provides readers with the sources and analogues that informed Shakespeare’s composition of Richard III. These include excerpts from Robert Fabyan’s New Chronicles of England and France, Thomas More’s The History of King Richard III, Edward Hall’s The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancaster and York, A Mirror for Magistrates, and The True Tragedy of Richard III. A selection from Colley Cibber’s eighteenth-century adaptation records the compromised form in which Richard III held the stage for approximately two hundred years before twentieth-century editors brought it back into recognizable shape. A representative selection of commentary on stage and film reproductions of Richard III is also provided, ranging from reviews of nineteenth-century productions by William Hazlitt and George Bernard Shaw, a survey of stage performances by Scott Colley, and in-depth analyses of twentieth-century film adaptations by Saskia Kossak, Barbara Hodgdon, and Peter S. Donaldson.

“Criticism” collects eight major pieces of scholarship, including early accounts of the play’s major themes by William Richardson and Edward Dowden, modern critical assessments by Wilbur Sanders, Elihu Pearlman, Linda Charnes, Katherine Maus, and Ian Moulton, and an essay by Harry Berger Jr. especially commissioned for this volume.

A Selected Bibliography is also included.

18 illustrations

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Thomas Cartelli is professor of English and Film Studies at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He is the author of Repositioning Shakespeare: National Formations, Postcolonial Appropriations; Marlowe, Shakespeare, and the Economy of Theatrical Experience, and coauthor of New Wave Shakespeare on Screen. His essays appear in The Cambridge Companion to Christopher Marlowe; Shakespeare the Movie II; and A Blackwell Companion to Shakespeare, among others.

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (December 19, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393929590
• ISBN-13: 978-0393929591
• Product Dimensions: 1 x 5 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #235,174 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1564, and his birth is traditionally celebrated on April 23. The facts of his life, known from surviving documents, are sparse. He was one of eight children born to John Shakespeare, a merchant of some standing in his community. William probably went to the King's New School in Stratford, but he had no university education. In November 1582, at the age of eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior, who was pregnant with their first child, Susanna. She was born on May 26, 1583. Twins, a boy, Hamnet ( who would die at age eleven), and a girl, Judith, were born in 1585. By 1592 Shakespeare had gone to London working as an actor and already known as a playwright. A rival dramatist, Robert Greene, referred to him as "an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers." Shakespeare became a principal shareholder and playwright of the successful acting troupe, the Lord Chamberlain's Men (later under James I, called the King's Men). In 1599 the Lord Chamberlain's Men built and occupied the Globe Theater in Southwark near the Thames River. Here many of Shakespeare's plays were performed by the most famous actors of his time, including Richard Burbage, Will Kempe, and Robert Armin. In addition to his 37 plays, Shakespeare had a hand in others, including Sir Thomas More and The Two Noble Kinsmen, and he wrote poems, including Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. His 154 sonnets were published, probably without his authorization, in 1609. In 1611 or 1612 he gave up his lodgings in London and devoted more and more time to retirement in Stratford, though he continued writing such plays as The Tempest and Henry VII until about 1613. He died on April 23 1616, and was buried in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford. No collected edition of his plays was published during his life-time, but in 1623 two members of his acting company, John Heminges and Henry Condell, put together the great collection now called the First Folio.

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5.0 out of 5 stars THE FIRST RESOURCE TO TURN TO ALWAYS FOR ENGLISH LITERATURE IS NORTON CRITICAL EDITIONS, AND THIS FOR RICHARD III, January 18, 2009

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This review is from: Richard III (Norton Critical Editions) (Paperback)

Norton Critical Editions has long been the first resource to tap for English language Literature. For interpretation cum primary sources we might prefer the recent The Oxford Shakespeare: The Tragedy of King Richard III (Oxford World's Classics: the Oxford Shakespeare), referenced here in the Norton, in fact, and we might also find further along the shelf the King Richard III (Arden Shakespeare: Second Series), but we always know the Norton will be quite comprehensive and the highest quality of the academic as opposed to the polemic.

And in this very recent release from Norton we find no variation from this reputation. The primary sources in themselves are worthwhile to have between one cover in order to avoid disturbing your academic librarian while clodding across the oak floors.

From the section here on primary sources and analogues we discover of course an extensive excerpt (over thirty large pages) from Saint Thomas More's The History Of King Richard The Third, with the interesting story of how More came to record this gruesome history. From More we receive the deformed figure of Richard as well.

Let us note in passing that the cover of this edition does not bear the usual painting from the past we have come to expect, but a photo of Al Pacino in full regalia from his Looking for Richard, and we realize, as with Richard III, these actors are far too old. Such a one could never seduce the fair queen over the very corpse of her husband! Even Olivier in Richard III with Laurence Olivier (Import Edition) may be a bit too far gone, and stiff. Nevertheless the Pacino of Dog Day Afternoon just might have worked!

Forgive that digression, please. Under sources of course we also find Fabyan's New Chronicles of 1516, and Edward Hall's 1548 Union, as well of course as more direct source material for Mr. Shakespeare such as the Mirror for Magistrates from 1559 and the True Tragedie of 1594

The 1700 adaptation by Cibber which misrepresented the play for hundreds of years is also presented for comparison's sake. The history of stage critics take on various actor's presentation of King Richard follows, including George Bernard Shaw on Henry Irving's Richard. Several other articles in this section examine the history of interpreting Richard III fomr the earliest stagings through the latest film, including Olivier and Ian MacLellan.

The history of criticism of the play in itself is also presented, beginning with William Richardson and Edward Dowden through Wilbur Sanders. E. Pearlman discusses the Invention of Richard of Gloucester and Linda Charnes adds an excerpt from her Belaboring the Obvious: Reading the Monstrous Body of King Richard III. Katherine Maus handles Myself Alone: Richard III as Stage Machiavel; Ian Moulton, drawing from 'A Monster Great Deformed' discusses the Unruly Masculinity of Richard III, while Harry Berger, Jr. writes a piece original to this edition entitled Conscience and Complicity in Richard III.

As you can see this is a very comprehensive book, closing with a four page bibliography in print as tiny as legal notices in the newspaper. The text of the play itself takes about 105 pages, with textual variants held for the end. Each page of the play includes a few explanations of unfamiliar terms, etc.

The seven page preface by the editor Thomas Cartelli traces the sources of the text, the history through several editors since Shakespeare, and places it within the context of the other Historical plays of Henries and the War of the Roses.

Cartelli alters past practice in choosing to rely upon the first Quarto version, and explains well this decision, with occasional reference to the first (and only) Folio when the Quarto's terms are unclear, misprinted or omitted. Richard III was so popular a play in the time of Shakespeare that its Quarto editions run through eight versions altogether. Cartelli returns with good reason herein expressed to the original Quarto version.

Thus you may discover here everything you wish to know about this disturbing play which has given us lines as famous as anything from Shakespeare's Sonnets (Arden Shakespeare: Third Series) or even Hamlet (Norton Critical Editions), in a format designed for the immediate playing of it without further adaptation (an event which could and has run well over four hours!).

For further ideas from recent staging please see the well-illustrated and examined Richard III (Arden Shakespeare: Shakespeare at Stratford Series) which carries photographs and explanations of the history of staging Richard in Stratford up to our time.

This is a play we need to see again now as we strive to recover from decades of Machiavellian politics and a long War of the Red and Blue Roses, as we come together as one people and one nation.