ABSTRACT
The excessive focus on Richard often leads to ignoring the play’s true drama. W. H. Auden states that “Richard III concentrates on an individual character”, but it is we who have concentrated on this individual character in contrast to the wide, varied, and complicated tapestry that Shakespeare has provided. The interest in Richard III, both as a historical figure and as a dramatic character, shows no side of waning any time in the near future. Richard has become akin to Agathocles, not Cesare Borgia; he exemplifies not the ideal Machiavellian but precisely the kind of prince Machiavelli warned the Prince not to be. Shakespeare’s politic histories portray the craving of such power, how it is fought for, and how it is lost. Shakespeare’s thinking as a dramatist remains both open-ended and deliberate, and his exploration reveals durable truths about the art of politics and of drama.
