critics

• Rich

  Richard is a chameleon
• Greenblat on Anne

  shallow, corruptible, naively ambitious, and, above all, frightened
• Greenblat on women

  keep moral hope alive for us
• Belsey on Elizabeth

  a kind of ventriloquist dummy
• Holland on McKellan's Richard

  his most natural ally is the camera
• Shirley Galloway

  'The women of this play function as voices of protest and morality
• Sparknotes

  'He is evil, corrupt, sadistic, and manipulative, and he will stop at nothing to become King
• Yorknotes

  'He has no grand design for England, merely an egotistical desire to remain on the throne he has usurped
• Yorknotes

  'another foolish man who sees the truth too late' (Buckingham)
• Blades

  'Richmond the healer is immediately linked with imagery of brightness and warmth
• Harold Bloom

  'Shakespeare shocks by rendering us incapable of resisting Richard's terrifying charms
• Kevin Spacey

  'It is a play about a man who doesn't have a conscience and grows a conscience
• Asimov

  "The world that Shakespeare portrays in Richard III is a man's world"
• Tillyard

  "Richard invariably "allocates his own guilt along sexual lines so that women are the root of his evil"
• Smith

  "They often do nothing to advance the plot, and in fact, they often interrupt the action"
• Percec

  "like the fairy tale motif, the son who does not live up to the expectations and standards of his genitor is discarded"
• misogyny of the male characters' a sign of 'social malfunction.'


  Jane Donawerth, late 20th Century feminist critic.
• Richard is the 'villain you love to hate.'


  A popular, modern view of Richard.
• Every actor wants to play Richard - nobody wants the part of Richmond.'


  Professor Holland, 21st Century critic/Shakespeare scholar.
• Richard continues the dramatic role of the 'Vice' character, as modernised in the role of 'Punch', from 'Punch and Judy.'


  Samuel Johnson, 18th Century critic.
• We have 'semi-reluctant admiration' for Richard. 'Though wicked, he remains great.'


  Wilson Knight, early 20th Century critic.
• Richard, through his 'embodiment of the comic Vice, offers the false as more attractive than the true.'


  Rossiter, mid 20th Century critic.
• Richard's 'rhetorical brilliance'. Also, 'the fickle stupidity of women.'


  Peter Smith, late 20th Century critic.
• The play depicts 'the power and the limitations of evil.' Also, it is intended to evoke 'terror rather than compassion.'


  Schlegel, 19th Century critic.
• The play is a piece of 'political propaganda' which 'plays to the Tudor myth demonising Richard.'


  Lily Campbell, early 20th Century critic.
• Admires Richard's 'masculine individualism.'

  E. Pearlman, 20th Century critic.
• Shakespeare's play is subversive - we side with the Machiavellian devil.' She also says the play is 'topical for our times' due to modern tyrants such as Hitler and Gaddafi.


  Rebecca Warren, modern 20th Century critic.
• the play is shocking because we are rendered incapable of resisting Richard's terrifying charms.'


  Harold Bloom, 20th century critic