Richard III (The Annotated Shakespeare)

254 Pages·2008·0.9 MB·English

by  William Shakespeare

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Richard III
William Shakespeare
Edited, fully annotated,and introduced by Burton Raffel
With an essay by Harold Bloom
  
Yale University Press • New Haven and London
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Copyright © by Burton Raffel.
All rights reserved.
This book may not be reproduced,in whole or in part,including illustrations,
in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections and 
of the U.S.Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press),
without written permission from the publishers.
Harold Bloom,Introduction to Richard III,copyright © ,
by Harold Bloom,adapted and reprinted by permission of
Chelsea House Publishers,an imprint of Infobase Publishing.
Designed by Rebecca Gibb.
Set in Bembo type by The Composing Room of Michigan,Inc.
Printed in the United States of America by R.R.Donnelley & Sons.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Shakespeare,William,–.
Richard III /William Shakespeare ;edited,fully annotated,
and introduced by Burton Raffel;with an essay by Harold Bloom.
p. cm.— (The annotated Shakespeare)
----(paperbound)
. Richard III,King of England,–—Drama.
. Great Britain—History—Richard III,–—Drama.
I. Raffel,Burton. II. Bloom,Harold. III. Title.
. 
.(cid:2)—dc

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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To Gary and Joan Marotta
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
AboutThis Book ix
Introduction xix
Some Essentials of the Shakespearean Stage xxxix
Richard III 
An Essay by Harold Bloom 
Further Reading 
Finding List 
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  
R
ichard III can be singularly difficult going, densely
strewn with historically produced linguistic prickles.
Here is old Queen Margaret,summing up her long cat-
alogue of injuries and grief:
Bear with me.I am hungry for revenge,
And now I cloy me with beholding it.
Thy Edward he is dead,that stabbed my Edward,
The other Edward dead,to quit my Edward.
Young York,he is but boot,because both they
Matched not the high perfection of my loss.
Thy Clarence he is dead,that stabbed my Edward,
And the beholders of this frantic play –
Th’adulterate Hastings,Rivers,Vaughan,Grey –
Untimely smothered in their dusky graves.
Richard yet lives,hell’s black intelligencer,
Only reserved their factor to buy souls
And send them thither.But at hand,at hand,
Ensues his piteous and unpitied end,
Earth gapes,hell burns,fiends roar,saints pray.
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