A Stage Violence of the Battle of Bosworth Field - Essay Example

A Stage Violence Analysis of the Battle of Bosworth Field The Battle of Bosworth Field was the ultimate major battle in the Wars of the Roses, wrestled between the House of York and the House of Lancaster. The battle brought an end to the reign of Plantagenet in England and paved the way for the Tudor kingdom. This essay tries to prove that the Battle of Bosworth Field, as depicted by William Shakespeare, is in truth an unsightly tale of violence and despair, not a theatrical depiction of heroism or courage. The storytellers of the Battle of Bosworth look as if they are sketching a vivid image of evildoing inflicting ‘upon itself, out of itself’ (Shakespeare 1786, 26). The battle scenes were remarkable for their splendor and their paradox. Rather than executing the usual sword fights, Shakespeare’s period combat situated two armed forces on the stage. The ultimate battle was rid of any traces of heroic splendor. It started with a massive spell of movement, of cautiously organized turmoil as the two armed forces mobilized. Without a doubt, Bosworth is depicted with a somewhat brilliant detail. The mobilization of the two armies commanded by competing rulers, the putting up of the two gazebos, the string of apparitions with their messages from Richard to Richmond, and ultimately the opposite dialogues with the armies, set out a grand structure of stage proportions to emphasize the implications of the impending battle. Prior to Bosworth the rival sides are those of righteousness against wickedness, the burden of growing remorse, placed on the shoulders of Richard by his victims’ specters, turning Richmond to a righteous protector. Richard, in his rousing command to his army, struggles quite deliberately and fruitlessly to convey the anti-French prejudiced message (Shakespeare 1786, 152): Let’s whip these stragglers o’er the seas again; Lash hence these overweening rags of France. The tactic of Richard at this point can be viewed as the bare mass-provoking strategy. Even though it is certain that the Elizabethan performers playing the characters of Richmond and Richard may have been depended on for a realistic scene of sword fight, and the clear melodic echo of siren and defeat would have endowed this with its own theatrical elements, the depiction of the Battle of Bosworth is typical of the war tragedy of Shakespeare in the uneven measure of space and time allocated to dialogues and dramatics rather than combat (Meron 2000, 190-191). Act V has the grandest stage scenes, specifically in the Battle of Bosworth Field. Both Richmond and Richard were shown organizing their troops, and almost immediately afterward Richard is troubled and Richmond is favored by the specters. In his address to his army Richmond attacks the King as a “bloody tyrant and a homicide” (Meron 2000, 191). On the other hand, Richmond highlighted the imminent violent downfall of Richard (Shakespeare 1863, 568): The weary sun hath made a golden set, And by the bright tract of his fiery car Gives token of a goodly day to-morrow. But Richard keeps on preparing for a violent encounter. He dispatches Catesby to inform Stanley that if he refuses to unite with the forces of Richard, his son will be killed. However, although his commanders Surrey and Northumberland are trying to motivate their army, Richard himself is becoming increasingly disheartened: “I have not that alacrity of spirit Nor cheer of mind that I was wont to have” (Shakespeare 1813, 556). He pointed out that the day of the Battle of Bosworth will be “A black day to somebody” (Shakespeare 1843(a), 122), but not knowing that it would be his. In the Battle of Bosworth, Richard’s appeal to his army is quite undignified. He lays blame on weak and unsuccessful men, and his apparition of his people and his country is strangely violent. It is notable as well that Richard brings up children and wives, though from another point of view: “Shall these enjoy our lands? Lie with our wives? Ravish our daughters?” (Shakespeare 1994, 137). In the course of the Battle of Bosworth, Richard’s mind pursues its own violent path. His words are rousing in its ferocity, and audiences can visualize soldiers being stirred to unequaled hostility. The scene closes with the report that Stanley has declined to unite his army with Richard’s forces, but Richard is determined to wait until after the battle for the assassination of Stanley’s son, George. Richard lunges into combat with the paradoxical brilliant quality of his existence: “A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!” (Shakespeare 1786, 154). The victory of Richmond is important for a number of reasons. First, his statement in scene V, “the bloody dog is dead” (Shakespeare 1786, 155), improves the sense of coherence within the play. More crucial to such coherence is the final speech of Richmond, which stresses the union of the House of Lancaster and the House of York. Primarily, he calls to mind brutal sufferings England has endured (Shakespeare 1843(b), 200): England hath long been mad and scarr’d herself: The brother blindly shed the brother’s blood, The father rashly slaughter’d his own son, The son, compell’d, been butcher to the sire. The central idea is that Richard’s fury to demolish and consume others in violence emanates from fear of death and nourishes a vision of supremacy. By the downfall of his reign, when the powerful monarchy has gave him no long-lasting assurance, he rouses from his sleep in Bosworth Field to discover his mind filled with the victims he has engulfed. The specters he sees are the people he has consumed but cannot swallow. For a while Richard falls into horror and fear: “What do I fear? Myself? There’s none else by” (Shakespeare 1786, 147). But terror overwhelms him, “Lest I revenge” (Bate & Rasmussen 2008, 8). Yet at this moment vengeance clearly suggests self-annihilation: “What, myself upon myself?” (Bate & Rasmussen 2008, 8) Sensibly, the play ends with a murderous Richard at Bosworth Field. There he violently attacks an enemy in a satire of the conspirator’s murderous calling. The Battle of Bosworth was a mostly violent, bloody, savage, and bewildering event. Some historians claim that Richard suffered numerous head blows which forced his helmet into his cranium. Receiving the news of Stanley’s union with the adversary, Richard becomes all the more resolved to wage war, bringing together the principle of St. George and the dragon (Jowett 2000, 353). With this fused vision in the audiences’ thoughts they are presented a short battle scene excellent for the statement “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” (Shakespeare 1786, 154). Afterward, in the last scene, Richmond violently kills Richard in a progression that the performers should execute without any dialogue. Bosworth is the highlight and culmination not just for Richard but for the entire play and the battles it has staged. For all the modern qualities of the theatrical creations of Shakespeare, the Battle of Bosworth Field is even more indebted to the legacy of the morality drama. For example, the symbolic roles and events composed of synchronized phasing at Bosworth are observable; the conversation of Richard with himself prior to the battle; the mentions of components of de casibus drama, which are later on combined with the moral standards of the early Elizabethan era (Hammond 1981, 99). The most important application Shakespeare makes of his theatrical legacy is in Richard’s portrayal. In Bosworth, the deceit, betrayal and violence which had been the governing features of the country since Henry VI’s reign are portrayed in ceremonial acts of compromise and vengeance. With several daring efforts Shakespeare engraves the picture of the dangerous evil permanently on the audiences’ thoughts through the portrayal of the Battle of Bosworth. In the scene, Shakespeare habitually evokes on his audiences’ mind the violent actions that Richard has perpetrated. As cried out by Queen Margaret (Shakespeare 2007, 163): I had an Edward, till a Richard kill’d him; I had a Harry, till a Richard kill’d him; Thou hadst an Edward, till a Richard kill’d him; Thou hadst a Richard, till a Richard killed him. Through the Battle of Bosworth, Richard’s image as an evil became immortal. Conclusions This essay tries to prove that the Battle of Bosworth Field is indeed a retelling of the violent, brutal, and sadistic events leading to and during the Battle of Bosworth. It is not mainly focused on heroism, bravery, and hope, but less on these aspects. It is a realistic portrayal of the factual events that took place during the Wars of the Roses. Although Shakespeare exceptionally dramatized the historical event, it is still evident from the dialogues of Richard, Richmond, and Stanley, and the fatal fate of all those involved in the battle that the entire endeavor is a massive bloodshed. Nevertheless, by using dualities (e.g. good and evil, moral and immoral), Shakespeare was able to bring light on the elements of stage violence he wanted to portray in the Battle of Bosworth Field. Works Cited Bate, Jonathan & Eric Rasmussen. Richard III. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Hammond, Anthony. King Richard III. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning, 1981. Jowett, John. The Tragedy of King Richard III. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2000. Meron, Theodor. Bloody Constraint: War and Chivalry in Shakespeare. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2000. Shakespeare, William. Richard III. London: Bell, 1786. Shakespeare, William. The Plays of William Shakespeare. New York: New York Public Library, 1813. Shakespeare, William. The dramatic works of William Shakespeare. New York: Harper, 1843(a). Shakespeare, William. The plays and poems, Volume 4. Leipzig: University of Lausanne, 1843(b). Shakespeare, William. The works of Shakespeare, Volume 2. London: G. Routledge & Sons, 1863. Shakespeare, William. William Shakespeare: The Complete Works. New York: Barnes & Noble Publishing, 1994. Shakespeare, William. Richard III. New York: Filiquarian Publishing, LLC, 2007. Read More