This paper will use Sigmund Freud’s essay “The Uncanny” to analyse William Shakespeare’s play Richard III. It will be argued that, although the play predates the ideas of Freud, it makes use of several elements of the uncanny to set the scene or to enhance imagery. With the goal to reveal such aspects of the play, a number of specific topics and ideas will be discussed and examined. The dreams of the play will be interpreted; Richard III is noteworthy for its reliance on dreams to replace the supernatural elements often used by Shakespeare, but the very nature of the dreams calls that into question—as they seem prophetic. The roles of women, and Richard’s own “femininity”, will be examined. While the men dream, women speak curses that, eventually, appear to come true. The doubling of characters, historical events and devices like dreams and curses will also be looked into—all to find the uncanny core of the play’s narrative. A large part of that narrative involves political manoeuvring, and the psychology of Richard as he goes about achieving his goals before conscience causes his downfall. Both will be analysed with the help of close readings, psychological research and comparisons to Niccolò Machiavelli’s ideas. In the end, the full extent of the uncanny impact on the play should be revealed with an explanation of how the individual aspects of the play come together, and how the reversals of Richard makes him seem uncanny both to fellow characters and audiences. Keywords: Richard III; William Shakespeare; history; the uncanny; Sigmund Freud.

The entirety of modern academia is founded on some form of historical authentication and interpretation. Historical exploration, in fact, represents the necessary element for the cognitive linking of interdisciplinary learning. At essence academic historiography is first - the product of intrigue - and then its contemporary expression. But though the field of academic history poses the perfect union of science and literary arts, modern instruction has sometimes grappled with finding and striking the optimal balance for effectively teaching historical authentication and its interpretation. Recognition and application of both aspects are essential to the effective demonstration of history as a viable, if not primary choice of high school-aged students for academic career path. The focus of this project relies on the premise that young people find fascination in history as readily as they might music, mathematics, medicine, or any other form of science and art. Using the dramatic Wars of the Roses as a backdrop, Constructing History: Richard III and the Wars of the Roses: A Teaching Unit aims to whet the historical appetite of students, and to instill in them a sense of historical awareness as individuals. Our curriculum provides high school educators with lessons that clearly demonstrate to students the difference between academic historiography and historical narrative while highlighting the imperative for interdisciplinarity. The unit introduces and profiles figures - both likely and unlikely historians - of various academic and public professions from the past and the present. Students will begin to understand the importance of discovering for themselves whether the histories they themselves have either accepted (or rejected) are true. Armed with this knowledge they can then determine how best to reasonably express their conclusions, leading directly to the main focal point of the project wherein students will learn that history is a cultural construct, and that especially now, all of us participate in its construction as both actors and narrators.

THESIS ABSTRACT This MA thesis examines the portrayal of King Richard III (1452-1485) in texts preceding William Shakespeare's canonical play on this subject. By analyzing a wide range of sources written between the 1480s and the 1590s, it traces how the reputation of Richard III as an epitome of a tyrant, a usurper and a royal murderer was created and consolidated. At the same time, special attention is paid to innovations and deviations from this interpretation that contributed to the diversification of the King's image. The first chapter covers some of the most significant historiographic works of the Tudor era: The Second Continuation of The Crowland Chronicle, chronicles by Polydore Vergil, Edward Hall, and Raphael Holinshed, Thomas More's historical narrative, as well as a less-known manuscript by Dominic Mancini who described the early months of the reign of Richard III. The second chapter examines the transformation of the historical topic into poetry. The image of Richard III is analyzed in as diverse sources as, on the one hand, a popular ballad and, on the other hand, a prominent poetically-didactic work A Mirror for Magistrates. The representation of Richard III on the English stage is discussed in the third chapter in connection with Thomas Legge's university drama Richardus Tertius and the...

Due to the social, political, and religious upheavals occurring across Europe in the Early Modern period, many writers were exploring the proper relationship between citizens and political and religious leaders. While some writers encouraged citizens to give unconditional loyalty to local and national leaders, Shakespeare has a pattern of endorsing citizen rebellion as a moral means to overthrow tyrannical rulers. By exploring Richard III, Measure for Measure, and Julius Caesar, I argue that Shakespeare is developing a taxonomy of citizen responses to a tyrannical leader and teaches citizens that a moral rebellion can be launched against a tyrant when a citizen embraces personal responsibility, accepts the power of rhetoric over violence, and overcomes the filtering effects of nostalgia. To demonstrate that Shakespeare is deliberately entering the conversation about a citizen's reaction to a tyrant, I provide information about how a tyrant is defined in the Early Modern period. I synthesize the scholarship on relevant texts in the period and explain how all three leaders in the aforementioned plays support that definition of tyranny. Then I focus on each play's surrounding characters to discuss the motivations and reactions of rebellious and obedient citizens. Finally, I conclude each section with an analysis of the repercussions of the citizen's actions and evaluate the lessons that Shakespeare is consistently promoting about moral rebellion.

<p>Drawing on Katherine Eggert’s discussion of Joan la Pucelle’s dramatic skills, this thesis argues that, through effective performances on the characters around them, the women of Shakespeare’s first tetralogy achieve and exercise extensive political power and that the male project of silencing these women through vilification and condemnation is an attempt to diminish that political power. The women in these plays are not born to the power they achieve, and it is not bestowed upon them by others. The female characters of the first tetralogy use theatrical power to enter and, in some cases, dominate the masculine world of political authority through their theatrical skill. They persuade, seduce, manipulate, and argue their ways through the highest circles of political authority and, transgressing patriarchal notions of political authority, they wield decidedly unfeminine power.</p> <p>These plays demonstrate the potential public impact and rebellious or resistant power of the female voice. In the first chapter of this thesis, I argue that these characters, through dramatically effective speech, exert significant female political agency. In the second chapter, I further contend that the male project of silencing these women's voices, expressed through gendered slurs and accusations of sexual misconduct, is a method of subduing the women’s political power. By examining the subversive women of Shakespeare's first tetralogy, this thesis explores the ways in which these characters use voice to enter and, in some cases, dominate the masculine world of political authority.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

This thesis analyzes the representation of disability in adaptations of Shakespeare’s Richard III in order to propose a theory of Prosthetic Adaptation. Ian McKellen and Richard Loncraine’s film adaptation, and Patrick Warren’s manga adaptation, are closely read through the lenses of Adaptation Theory and Critical Disability Studies. Prosthetic Adaptation is the use and incorporation of disability in adapted texts in such a way that both the text and the portrayal/reading of the disability are mutually transformed. Close reading analysis is conducted with both Critical Disability Studies and Adaptation Studies lenses. The transformation of the texts and disability work together to push the boundaries of their genre/medium that they have been transformed into, using those broken boundaries to comment on disability itself. McKellen and Loncraine’s film uses archetypes of war films and shifts in tone to comment on the dangers of the disability stereotype and spectacle in film; Warren uses color and form to create a strong visual metaphor of the invisibility of disability to the able-bodied eye, commenting how disability is erased and removed from sociocultural context. It is through these commentaries that both the concept of disability and the texts themselves experience a broadening of potential meanings and a reshaping of boundaries.

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Since Shakespeare was introduced to China at the beginning of the 20th Century, the Chinese have translated the English playwright's plays and performed them on the Chinese stage either in the form of spoken drama or the traditional Chinese opera. No matter which approach is chosen to perform the dramatist, it is an intercultural form in introducing him to the Chinese.

Since Shakespeare was introduced to China at the beginning of the 20th Century, the Chinese have translated the English playwright's plays and performed them on the Chinese stage either in the form of spoken drama or the traditional Chinese opera. No matter which approach is chosen to perform the dramatist, it is an intercultural form in introducing him to the Chinese.

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2014. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study analyses three plays by Romanian author, Matei Vişniec, namely Richard III n’aura pas lieu, Le Roi, le rat et le fou du Roi, et L’Histoire du communisme racontée aux malades mentaux. The study begins with a discussion of the author’s particular personal, historical and literary circumstances in order to contextualise his use of intertextuality and the fictionalisation of writers to whom he pays homage in his plays. It seeks to further analyse the way in which these various contexts provide the author with a unique authority and insight to speak on notions of freedom. Through close readings of the given texts, we analyse Vişniec’s use of various techniques such as parallel monologues, characters as mouthpieces, the repetition of phrases, and silence in order to demonstrate the breakdown in communication that penetrates his plays. In a communist context, the study recognises that verbal denunciation is not an effective means of protesting the oppression often experienced in totalitarian or dictatorial regimes. If verbal communication is not an effective means of protesting the horrors of such a regime, the study seeks to determine whether staged theatre could fulfil this role. The study notes that leaders in totalitarian regimes have often used theatre as a propaganda tool in order to further their own agendas. Similarly, we suggest that theatre could be an alternative means of communication in the hands of the oppressed. The study shows that the public and unifying character of theatre allows it to influence reality and thereby become a means of denunciation, a weapon of the struggle for freedom. Finally, we discuss the complex relationship that exists between man and freedom. The study distinguishes between political or external freedom and metaphysical or internal freedom. We posit, along with Jean-Paul Sartre and Erich Fromm, that freedom is accompanied by responsibility and a profound existential angst. Man is unable to bear this burden and as such, he willingly loses his freedom in order to seek it once more. This perpetual search for freedom becomes a vicious circle from which man tries endlessly to escape. In conclusion, the study demonstrates how Matei Vişniec himself experiences this vicious circle of freedom: having escaped the oppression of the Romanian communist regime, the author finds himself oppressed once again under the democracy of France, his country of exile. / FRENCH ABSTRACT: Résumé: Cette étude se penche sur une analyse de trois pièces de l’auteur roumain, Matei Vişniec : Richard III n’aura pas lieu, Le Roi, le rat et le fou du Roi, et L’Histoire du communisme racontée aux malades mentaux. L’étude débute avec une discussion des circonstances personnelles, historiques et littéraires de l’auteur afin de contextualiser son usage de l’intertextualité et de la fictionnalisation des écrivains à qui il rend hommage dans ses pièces. Nous analysons comment tous ces contextes lui fournissent une autorité singulière pour parler de la liberté. Par le biais de lectures approfondies nous analysons quelques techniques dont se sert Vişniec telles que les monologues parallèles, les personnages porte-paroles, la répétition des phrases et le silence afin de démontrer la crise de la communication verbale qui envahit ses pièces. Dans le contexte du communisme, nous déduisons que la dénonciation verbale n’est pas un outil efficace pour lutter contre l’oppression vécue sous un régime totalitaire ou dictatorial. Si la communication verbale n’est pas un moyen efficace pour protester contre les injustices d’un tel régime, nous nous demandons si le théâtre peut servir ce but. Nous remarquons que dans les régimes totalitaires, le théâtre a souvent été utilisé comme arme de propagande par les dirigeants et nous suggérons qu’il peut également servir les buts des opprimés comme moyen alternatif de communication. Le théâtre, de par sa nature publique et unificatrice, possède la capacité d’intervenir dans la réalité courante et il devient ainsi dénonciateur et arme de libération. Finalement, nous discutons la relation qu’entretient l’homme avec la liberté. Nous faisons une distinction entre la liberté politique ou extérieure, et la liberté métaphysique ou intérieure. Comme Jean-Paul Sartre et Erich Fromm, nous postulons que la liberté est accompagnée de la responsabilité et d’une angoisse existentielle profonde. Incapable de supporter ce fardeau qui lui incombe, l’homme perd volontiers sa liberté afin de recommencer à la chercher. Cette quête perpétuelle de la liberté devient un cercle vicieux auquel l’homme essaie de s’échapper. Pour conclure nous démontrons comment ce cercle vicieux se manifeste dans la vie de Matei Vişniec qui, ayant échappé à l’oppression du régime communiste en Roumanie, éprouve de nouveau des sentiments d’oppression sous la démocratie en France, son pays d’exil.