Tips & Notes On Module A (Richard III & Looking for Richard)

Resource Description

These are the notes I took from a NESA English Advanced Seminar on how to do well in Module A. It specifically looks at Richard for examples.

Everything is being dismantled, reconstructed, recycled. To what end? For what purpose?
To what extent is this statement true of the texts you have studied in this module?

Pacino sees something valuable in Shakespeare and wants to talk about it, wants to create a Shakespeare that reflects what we see and how we feel in a post-modernist context.
Shakespeare hides behind his characters. Does he challenge or affirm? Is he a rebel or a Queen’s man? Is he a Christian soldier or a heroic humanist?
Shakespeare is a shaper of history. Was Richard really that villainous? Have the frequent performances become their own truth? Richard’s real story has been rewritten through Shakespeare’s lens and decision to tell his story a certain way. He created his own Richard.
Two artists talking: What is the nature of this conversation? What do two men from different worlds talk about? This conversation becomes difficult due to the difference in time and living in different philosophies – theism vs postmodernism.
Opening of texts: ‘Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York’ – Shakespeare. ‘This insubstantial pageant’ – Pacino (quote from the Tempest).
Both open with a metaphor – of the seasons, the idea that seasons of life change regularly, that seasons are a natural phenomenon organised by God. An acknowledgement that the world is overseen and run by God. Richard is even considering that his reign as King won’t even be that long, and that it will run its course just as seasons do.

POWER
Resonances
Corruptive nature of power – our uneasy relationship with power, the fact that it is bestowed or given. ‘He has let the pursuit of power totally corrupt him’ – LFR. Richard pursues power that doesn’t belong to him.
The transient nature of power and our tenuous hold to power – ‘Every time there’s an election in this country, whether for mayor, president or city council… the fact is people are tired of the way it’s been and want a change. Both texts accept the fact that power is a brief thing. Part of the acceptance power is that truth is rendered powerless and truth is lost. Margaret is in essence the embodiment of truth and of what is to come, yet she is completely marginalised and sidelined (the patriarchal structures of powerless voiceless women who hold the truth yet are repressed). They did not have the power to speak against the King. In Richard’s pursuit of power, he doesn’t want the truth to be hold.