ABSTRACT
In the history plays, Shakespeare’s treatment of madness is curiously unhistorical. While rejecting the depiction of madness in characters who historically suffered from it, Shakespeare alternatively attributes madness to characters who were perfectly sane. Shakespeare was well versed in the Galenic concept of physical and psychological health being governed by a balance of the “humors”; this theory was widely accepted and was the “dominant model for explaining physical and mental illness in England until the mid-seventeenth century”. The details Tyrrel supplies regarding the murder of the princes also directly influence Richard’s decision to threaten the life of the Lord Stanley’s son, George later in Act IV. Richard finally reveals what he has sought all along: a creature to love him. What is stunning about the passage is that it is not the feigned melancholy he professes while wooing Anne or his performative grief when hearing of George’s death; it is instead a true revelation.
