‘A Possible Source for Richard III’s Prophetic Nightmare in Guicciardini’
2017; Oxford University Press; Volume: 64; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/notesj/gjx058
ISSN1471-6941
Autores Tópico(s)Renaissance and Early Modern Studies
ResumoIn Shakespeare’s Richard III, V.iii, during the night before his fatal Battle of Bosworth Field, King Richard is visited by the ghosts of those he has slain—Prince Edward of Wales, Henry VI, Clarence, Rivers, Grey, Vaughn, the two young princes Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury, Hastings, Lady Anne, and Buckingham. As King Richard awakens, he is terrified, as though these visits were real events. Only then does he realize he had a nightmare—‘Soft, I did but dream./ O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!’ (V.iii.178–179). His dream prefigures his defeat and death the next day. A hitherto overlooked literary source for Richard’s prophetic nightmare of noble but vindictive ghosts is found in Book One of Francesco Guicciardini’s 1561 A History of Italy (Geoffrey Fenton’s English translation was published by Thomas Vautrollier in 1579, and republished by Richard Field in 1599). As Sidney Alexander notes, ‘Guicciardini might be called a psychological historian—for him the motive power of the huge clockwork of events may be traced down to the mainspring of individual behavior.’1 Guiciardini’s psychological focus is likely to have attracted Shakespeare.
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