Renaissance Man

Shakespeare slumps are not a joke.

Recently, I've been running on low steam with Shakespeare, and it has been seen very clearly in the frequency on my blog posting. Also recently, in my Music Civilization class, we began learning about the Renaissance ideas of creativity and their notions of beauty and order in music, art, and literature. And how they intersect with one another. This is what has brought my interest in Shakespeare back to life.

A main idea I want to look at is the glory of the individual, and man as the maker of his own destiny. It's a little throwback from the Christian sensibilities that were seen through out the Byzantine and Medieval eras, to the Greek and Roman notions of man.

In Richard III, this aspect is very prominent in that he is trying to use every little trick he has to change his status in life and claim the throne that would never belong to him.

THE WOOING OF THE LADY ANNE


Duke of Gloucester:

"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,
And I nothing to back my suit at all,
But the plain devil and dissembling looks,
And yet to win her, all the world to nothing!"

 In this odd turn of events, Richard had killed this woman's husband and wooed her as she followed his body in the funeral procession. Sounds familiar, right? It's Gertrude and Claudius all over again, except that this Gertrude knows that Claudius killed her husband! Although he had done it coldly, he acts and puts on a show that she was his reason for doing so, and even entreats her to kill him if it displeases her. Of course it displeases her, but she cannot kill or give the order for his death, and so gives herself up to marry him, although she bitterly hates him.

Following the theme I've discovered, he is doing this ONLY for his own gain. The ending couplet of his soliloquy in this act is hugely pointing to this theme.

"Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,
That I may see my shadow as I pass."

That is, in my opinion, the quote that defines his whole character. This idea of telling the sun to shine brighter so that he can more easily see himself (even as he walks in the darkness of his deeds) is showing the elevation of the individual that is so strong in the Renaissance arts and mindset.

Revoltingly, the Lady Anne actually marries him and then is later killed by him because she no longer suits his purposes. No surprise there, right?