“BY ST. PAUL”:

CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT VIEWS OF CONSCIENCE AND TRAGEDY IN RICHARD III

A Thesis

Submitted to the Divinity School Faculty of

Duke University

in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of

Master of Theological Studies

in

The Divinity School

by

Joel David Musser

M.A., Louisiana State University, 2012

B.A., Grove City College, 2009

April 2014

____________________________________

Paul Griffiths, Thesis Advisor

____________________________________

Meredith Riedel, M.T.S. Director

Musser 2

Abstract

Although Richard III has always been popular, its critical reception has been less positive. Many

critics, for instance, complain that Richard, as a caricatured villain, rather suddenly and

unconvincingly gains a conscience in the soliloquy of V.iii. I believe that we must look at the

moral and theological aspects of the play to make it—and Richard especially—more coherent

and interesting. More specifically, Richard III portrays conflicting theological accounts of

volition, sin, and conscience, centered on how Catholics and Protestants read St. Paul, especially

Romans 7:14-25.

While the play largely dramatizes a Calvinist theology (with Richard as a Reformed Vice

character), the incorporation of Calvin’s moral theology is incomplete. Richard wrestles with his

conscience at a key moment late in the play—the soliloquy of V.iii., which echoes Romans 7:14-

25—even though the unregenerate have no conscience, according to Calvin; they are at best only

afflicted by “torments,” premonitions of the final judgment. The sincerity of Richard’s struggle

and the real possibility of heeding his conscience reflect a more Catholic, or at least less

Protestant, understanding of the effect of sin on human nature. That the sinner’s conscience is

real and not just “torments” is indicated by the differing responses of Murderers 1 and 2 to an

afflicted conscience: one kills, the other “repent[s].” Similarly, Clarence and Richard are each

tormented with dreams of those they killed. Clarence does not heed his conscience; Richard’s

last moments are left open, offstage, so he may, like Murderer 2, have repented at the last

moment, as he almost does in V.iii.

My analysis does not necessarily suggest that a “Catholic” element is retained in an

otherwise “Calvinist” dramatization of theology in Richard III. It may be, as Stephen Greenblatt

and Sarah Beckwith have argued with Purgatory and the Sacrament of Confession, that

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Shakespeare is simply drawing upon theological resources that make for good drama. However

we understand the afterlife of Catholicism in Shakespeare’s plays, we need to recognize the

relevance of Catholic and Protestant understandings of St. Paul in order to fully appreciate

Richard III.

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Introduction

Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit! / I dare damnation.

Laertes, Hamlet, IV.v.133-1341

Although Richard III has enjoyed popular appeal from the start, critics often remark that it lacks

the finesse of Shakespeare’s later works. It lacks the concision of Macbeth, the subtlety of

Hamlet, the sophistication of King Lear. More specifically, critics tend to complain that Richard

is both caricatured and inconsistent; the morality-play villain that begins the play seems rather

suddenly to gain a conscience later in the play—going “from speaking cartoon to psychic

inwardness” in the “inept” soliloquy in V.iii, as Harold Bloom describes it.2 Colley Cibber’s

revision fixed this inconsistency by extending the caricature into the second part of the piece,

making Richard III a solidly entertaining performance play (1699) that lasted well into the

nineteenth century.3 Herschel Baker thinks “there are few if any amoral ambiguities in” Richard;

therefore “it is not surprising that Colley Cibber’s…version” had so much success.4 Other critics

find the Richard of the original version(s) to be just as flat, if only slightly more interesting.5

1 William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Richard the Third, in The Riverside Shakespeare, 2nd ed., ed. G. Blakemore

Evans et al. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997), 752-804. I use The Riverside Shakespeare throughout. 2 Harold Bloom, “Richard III,” Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (New York: Riverhead Books, 1998), 54-

73, 63. 3 Cibber’s influence on the text and performance of the play, of course, continue to this day. Modern scripts often

make use of some of Cibber’s additions, and modern performances tend to be dynamic. On the latter, take Sam

Mendes’s 2011 Old Vic presentation of Richard III, starring Kevin Spacey, as an example: “This ‘Richard III,’ says

Ben Brantley of the New York Times, “is basically an occasion for a star to practice the fine old art of going over

the top in a style that combines high artistry with the primal urge to show off… And though I’m just as happy that

this tradition has died out, it’s a hoot to watch someone of Mr. Spacey’s skill revive it with such blazing brazenness

and force of will.” (“It’s a Dehumanizing Business, Becoming Top Dog.” 19 January 2012; available online at

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/theater/reviews/kevin-spaceys-richard-iii-staged-by-sam-mendes-

review.html?smid=pl-share.) Brantley seems to concur with Harold Bloom’s opinion that “Shakespeare’s greatest

originality in Richard III, which redeems an otherwise cumbersome and overwritten drama is not so much Richard

himself as it is the hero-villain’s startlingly intimate relationship with the audience” (70). 4 Herschel Baker, Introduction to Richard III, 748-751, in The Riverside Shakespeare, op. cit., 751.

5 “Original version(s)” because the first folio (F) version (1623) differs enough from the first quarto (Q1) edition

(1597) that some scholars today think we should view them as “two separate though closely related plays” (Janice

Lull, “Note on the Text,” in King Richard III, updated edition, 52-54, ed. Janis Lull [Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2009], 52). Others find the relationship between F and the quartos to be more complicated.

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They tend to view Richard’s character as allegorical of either modern or medieval concerns: for

example, as a Machiavellian figure striving against fate or as a stock medieval character,

typifying evil.6 Recent scholarship, however, has begun to emphasize that “English theology and

ecclesiology shaped the drama at a fundamental level,”7 and that we need to “redefine . . . in

theological terms the poetic legacy that Shakespeare both inherits and bequeaths.”8 Richard III

is usually not specifically mentioned.9 This is especially surprising, considering that Richard

seems to be the only Catholic—almost an anti-Protestant—in a play set in the pre-Reformation

era; Richmond, by contrast, seems almost the icon of English Protestantism.

I propose that the best way to understand the unity of the play and the character of

Richard III is in light of the theological controversies of the English Reformation. I will argue

that Richard III dramatizes the conflicting interpretations of Paul’s epistles, especially that of

Romans, pertaining to conscience. I was startled by the unusual invocations of St. Paul uttered

five times—by Richard no less— in the play, and I sought to figure out why they were there.

(This is the only Shakespearean play in which St. Paul is explicitly invoked, and it was

uncommon in Elizabethan speech.) Looking with a Pauline lens, the problematic V.iii, especially

Herschel Baker, while favoring F, believes Q1 to be a “bad” quarto; moreover, some of the other quartos have a

clear connection to F. The Riverside version, as with most critical versions, uses F with some deference to the

quartos (Herschel Baker, “Note on the Text,” in The Riverside Shakespeare, op. cit., 794. 6 The former views Richard as principally a tragic, albeit Senecan villain-hero—see Janis Lull, “Plantagenets,

Lancastrians, Yorkists, and Tudors: 1-3 Henry VI, Richard III, Edward III” in The Cambridge Companion to

Shakespeare’s History Plays, ed. Michael Hattaway (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 89-105—

typified in the performances of Richard Burbage and David Cook and common until the twentieth century; for the

latter, see Marie-Hélène Besnault and Michel Bitot, “Historical legacy and fiction: the poetical reinvention of King

Richard III,” in The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s History Plays, ed. Michael Hattaway (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 2002), 106-125, and see most twentieth-century performances including the film

versions of Laurence Olivier and Ian McKellen. 7 Jeffrey Knapp, Shakespeare’s Tribe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 9.

8 Lisa Freinkel, Reading Shakespeare’s Will: The Theology of Figure from Augustine to the Sonnets (New York:

Columbia University Press, 2002), xix. See also Ken Jackson and Arthur F. Marotti, “The Turn to Religion in Early

Modern English Studies,” Criticism 46, no. 1 (Winter 2004): 167-190. 9 A notable exception is Stephen Greenblatt’s chapter on “Staging Ghosts” in his Hamlet in Purgatory (Princeton,

NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 151-204, esp. 164ff.

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lines 177-206, now seemed connected to St. Paul’s inner dialogue in Romans 7:14-25. This

passage brings into stark contrast the differing Catholic and Protestant theologies and

hermeneutics, and how they played out in England.

I will argue that despite an overarching Protestant narrative, Richard III presents a

Catholic understanding of conscience. First, therefore, I will contrast Catholic and Protestant

theologies by comparing Aquinas’s and Calvin’s interpretations of Romans 7:14-25. Next I will

present several important aspects of Richard III through the Catholic and Protestant perspectives

I’ve established. By way of conclusion I will consider how the competing Catholic and

Protestant theologies contribute to Richard III, and how a Catholic theology of conscience

affects our perception of Richard III as tragedy.

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1. Catholic and Protestant Interpretations of Romans 7:14ff

[S]peak…what…is in your conscience wash’d As pure as sin with baptism.

Henry V to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry V, I.ii.29-32

Some caution must be exercised in distinguishing Catholic and Protestant theology during the

Reformation period, especially in England. Not only did Catholic theology and practice vary, but

it lingered in sundry places and diverse ways—especially in England.10

Protestantism was

perhaps even more diverse. England during Shakespeare’s time, however, was mostly influenced

by Calvin, as popularized by the Geneva Bible and its—especially Laurence Tomson’s—

annotations, and then by the Book of Common Prayer and the Homilies.11

For our purposes, we

need only consider a two unambiguous divergences from the Catholic faith: the extent and effect

of the Fall (concupiscence) and regeneration.

It should be noted that Romans 7:14ff varies little among the Latin, Greek, or English

versions used by the reformers and Catholics. The difference between Catholic and Protestant

readings of this passage depends upon their theological perspectives. For simplicity, we will look

at Calvin’s and Aquinas’s commentaries, which are tellingly echoed in the annotations of the

Geneva Bible and the Douay-Rheims New Testament.12

1.1 Romans 7:14-25: The Inner Struggle with Sinful Desires

St. Paul is here describing the inner struggle between the law of sin and the law of God within

the individual, and both Aquinas and Calvin draw on St. Augustine in their interpretation of the

10 See, e.g., the work of Eamon Duffy, especially The Stripping of the Altars, 2nd ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale

University Press, 2005 [1st ed., 1992]). 11

For a concise history of Calvin’s influence on the English church, see Philip Benedict, Christ’s Churches Purely

Reformed: A Social History of Calvinism (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), 230-255 and 384-422. 12

See the Appendix for a transliteration of the 1560 Geneva Bible and 1582 Douay-Rheims New Testament, with

online links that also have their annotations.

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passage. Augustine originally thought that Paul was speaking of himself prior to conversion or of

the unregenerate man in general, but not of himself as regenerate, since the struggle with sin is so

perspicuous, and the speaker seems in some sense to have sinned, e.g. in verse 19 (“For I do not

the good thing, which I would, but the evil, which I would not, that do I,” Geneva Bible).13

Augustine “did not want this passage applied personally to the Apostle who was already spiritual,

but rather to someone living under the Law and not yet under grace.”14

Through Augustine’s

conflict with the semi-Pelagians, however, he realized that “these words are better understood of

the spiritual man already living under grace, even though the body of the flesh is not yet spiritual,

but will be at the resurrection of the dead.”15

Aquinas and Calvin both refer approvingly to Augustine’s change in interpretation of the

passage as referring to St. Paul as a regenerate man. Aquinas thinks the later interpretation is

better, though we can read the passage as referring to an unregenerate person (i.e., Augustine’s

early view), albeit in a somewhat “forced” manner (§558; cf. §571 & §576).16

Calvin’s

commentary mentions Augustine’s previous position and “endeavour[s] to make readers see

clearly that [Augustine’s later position] is the case” (7.15).17

Calvin does, nevertheless, give

almost equal attention to discussing the unregenerate by explication of this passage, as we shall

see.

13 Libro 83 of Quaestionum.. See The Retractions i.xxii.i. from the Fathers of the church series, volume 60.

(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1968), 96-98. 14

Augustine, The Retractions, op. cit., 96. 15

Ibid., 97. 16

Augustine, Commentary on the Letter of Saint Paul to the Romans, trans. F. R. Larcher, O.P., ed. J. Mortensen

and E. Alarcón, Latin/English Edition of the Works of St. Thomas Aquinas, vol. 37 (Lander, Wyoming: The

Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, 2012). 17

Augustine, The Epistles of Paul The [sic] Apostle to the Romans and to the Thessalonians, trans. Ross Mackenzie,

ed. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1960).

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1.2 Flesh, Spirit, and Total Depravity

At first glance, Calvin and Aquinas seem to agree that “flesh,” “body,” etc. for Paul here refers

to the corrupt nature of man post-Fall; “spirit,” “mind,” etc. refers to that part of our nature

renewed by the Holy Spirit. Indeed, both agree that the former terms are connected to

“concupiscence” (i.e. the effect of Original Sin in people, from which arises the desire to sin; see,

e.g., James 1:14), and the latter terms to what Paul calls in Ephesians the “new man.”

Fundamentally, they disagree about the limit of concupiscence and the extent of regeneration in

the believer, as well as the degree of depravity in the unregenerate. For Aquinas, concupiscence

remains in the flesh of the unbeliever, and thus we are ever sinful venially, though our mind is

fully redeemed and graced, such that when concupiscence presents itself, we can deny the desire

(and not commit the act). The unregenerate lack the power of mind, and thus generally succumb

to desire and act on concupiscence. For Calvin, the whole person is under the power of

concupiscence, though the elect begin to be regenerated as a kind of second self.18

For Aquinas, “I am carnal” (vs. 14) means that the unregenerate is “submissive to the

flesh” per 1 Corinthians 3:3, while the regenerate is only “under attack from the flesh” per

Galatians 5:17 (§560)—the flesh being the locus of concupiscence. Following Aristotle (and

Plato), Aquinas asserts that man is like a city, with the flesh rebelling against the mind, which is

the ruler: for the regenerate, the fleshly rebellion is ever there, though it can be squashed before

action and even contemplation—since the mind has been fully regenerated and enriched by grace;

for the unregenerate, the mind surrenders to the rebellion (§559)—the mind though free is weak

and unhealed from the Fall and cannot resist succumbing to sin. For the unregenerate, he knows

18 For an excellent contrast of Calvin and Aquinas in regards to Romans, see Charles Raith II, “Portraits of Paul:

Aquinas and Calvin on Romans 7:14-25,” in Reading Romans with St. Thomas Aquinas, ed. Matthew Levering &

Michael Dauphinais (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2012). This paper is much indebted

to Raith’s analysis.

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what is wrong but does it anyway, “overcome by the suggestion of the devil or by passion or by

the inclination of a perverse habit” (§563). For the regenerate Paul, he does not perform the deed

or consent with the mind; he only desires through a “passion in the sense appetite” before it

comes “before the intellect’s judgment” (§563). This is a venial sin, a sin by “omission of the

good”— a consequence of the Fall, whereby we are sinful without actively committing the sin,

hence venial (§564). Thus even the unregenerate “hates” the evil he does, since he knows it is

opposed to nature; the regenerate hates the evil that stirs inside him prior to his judgment, since it

is opposed to nature. Looming large over this discussion is the Augustinian maxim that sin is not

“some reality,” but only “a privation of good . . . [a] kind of defect in man” (§571). Both the

regenerate and the unregenerate are capable of hating the temptations of the flesh (Augustine’s

early and late interpretations), even if only the regenerate have a mind fully restored to resist the

flesh.

For Calvin, concupiscence makes our whole nature corrupt (Romans, 7.14). Whereas in

Catholic teaching, the fall and concupiscence do not undo man as the image of God (only our

“likeness”), for Calvin, Adam’s fall “deprived [man] of the image of God” wholesale—“nothing

but perversity has remained in the heart of man since Adam” (§15). Regeneration is “the

renewing of our corrupt nature,” the process by which “God reforms us after His own image”

(§14). Calvin thinks this restoration does not happen in this world since “The law requires a

heavenly and angelic righteousness, in which no spot appears,” and Paul clearly admits of the

spot of sin in this passage. The spot, however, is infinitely large for Calvin.

We are so completely driven by the power of sin, that our whole mind, our whole

heart, and all our actions are inclined to sin. . . . We are . . . so addicted to sin, that

we can do nothing of our own accord but sin. The wickedness which holds sway

within us drives us to it (§14).19

19 Cf. §24, where the total depravity of “even the most perfect” is perhaps even more starkly described.

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Moreover, whatever good the godly does—their “best works”—they “are always corrupted by

some mark of sin, so that no reward can be hoped for, except in so far as God pardons them”

(§19). “This passage of Paul’s . . . teaches us that even the most perfect are subject to misery in

as long as they dwell in the flesh . . . .Indeed, when they examine themselves thoroughly, they

find nothing in their own nature but wretchedness” (§24).20

Like Aquinas’s venial sin, Calvin

sees even the righteous as tainted, but for him this taint covers their entire nature, preventing any

natural agency for good or even for resisting the flesh.

If such a contrast between Protestant and Catholic teaching need be made any more

explicit, we need only quote the annotation (which I modernized) to Romans 7:25 in the Douay-

Rheims:

Nothing done by concupiscence . . . whereunto the spirit, reason, or mind of man

consenteth not, can make him guilty before God. Neither can the motions of the

flesh in a just man ever any whit defile the operations of his spirit, as the

Lutherans [meaning Protestants] do hold: but make them often more meritorious,

for the continual combat that he hath with them.”

For Catholics, in addition to not prohibiting agency for good and for resisting evil, the flesh

actually offers a means of spiritual merit.

Catholics and Protestants thus disagree on whether the struggle with the flesh constitutes

mere venial sin, or total depravity for the just. Interestingly, they are more similar in their view

of the unregenerate: because of the Fall they are inclined towards sin, and their means of

resistance is greatly hindered (according to Aquinas) and nonexistent (for Calvin), which means

they tend to sin. In short, Catholics believe the unregenerate have deformed consciences,

20 This theme of “misery” and “wretchedness” is taken up explicitly in the second homily of the Book of Homilies

(1547). It makes great use of Paul, even alluding to Romans 7:24: we ought to think of ourselves like “all godly men

always have thought of themselves . . . as miserable and wretched sinners.” We are “very sinful, wretched, and

damnable”; “we are not able either to think a good thought, or work a good deed”; yet “without our merits or

deserts,” we may hope in God’s own mere mercy and tender goodness.” Available at

http://www.anglicanlibrary.org/homilies/index.htm. I have modernized the spelling.

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whereas Protestants believe the unregenerate have no conscience at all. This distinction will best

be drawn out as we discuss Richard III, as Richard and most (if not all?) of the key figures are

portrayed as unrepentant sinners—unregenerate according to Catholic and Protestant logic

(although the final minutes of some characters—including Richard—are left open in the play).

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2. Case Studies from Richard III

Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting

That would not let me sleep. (Methought) I lay

Worse than the mutines in the (bilboes). Rashly—

And prais’d be rashness for it—let us know

Our indiscretion sometime serves us well

When our deep plots do pall, and that should learn us

There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough-hew them how we will—

Hamlet to Horatio, Hamlet, V.ii. 4-11

Now let us look at specific aspects and instances in Richard III which seem to draw out the

different theological positions on Paul. I will begin by discussing Richard’s deformity in relation

to sexuality and the fall. Next I will discuss Richard’s self-determination in light of Protestant

and Catholic views of providence and free will. Lastly I will consider the role of conscience in

Richard III and in Calvin.

2.1 Richard’s Flesh: Deformed at Birth

Although it exceeds the scope of this paper to examine at length medieval and early modern

conceptions of physical deformity, we must say something about Richard’s deformity and its

relationship to his sexuality and villainy. There is some ambiguity in the text as to how Richard’s

appearance affects his person.

The play begins with Richard lamenting his “rudely stamp’d” figure, which is “not

shap’d for sportive tricks” befitting “a lady’s chamber,” where he imagines the other formally

warring men are so doing “in stead of mounting barbed steeds” (1-31). His “deformity” is

contrasted with the sexual fitness of other men: another “capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber / To

the lascivious pleasing of a lute”; he, however, is not “made to court an amorous looking-glass,”

he “want[s] love’s majesty / To strut before a wanton ambling nymph . . . curtail’d of this fair

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proportion” (12-18). In fact, Richard names the sexual ineptitude of his deformity as the reason

for his villainy: “And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover / To entertain these fair well-spoken

days, / I am determined to prove a villain / And hate the idle pleasures of these days” (28-31).

In the next scene, however, Richard woos and wins—most improbably—Anne, whose

father and husband Richard killed, with the dead, bleeding body of the latter lying there to boot!

Of course, Richard wins her by his words in a feverish back-and-forth of wits that eroticizes her

rage. Nevertheless, Richard concludes by comparing his “dissembling looks” to Edward (356):

A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman,

Fram’d in the prodigality of nature—

Young, valiant . . . .

And will she yet abase her eyes on me,

That cropp’d the golden prime of this sweet prince

And made her a widow to a woeful bed?

On me, whose all not equals Edward’s moi’ty?

On me, that halts and am misshapen thus? (242-250)

His wit again intercedes, and he mocks himself for apparently undervaluing his physical person.

My dukedom to a beggarly denier,

I do mistake my person all this while!

Upon my life, she finds (although I cannot)

Myself to be a marv’llous proper man.

I’ll be at charges for a looking-glass,

And entertain a score or two of tailors

To study the fashions to adorn my body:

. . .

Shine out fair sun, till I have bought a glass,

That I may see my shadow as I pass. (251-257, 262-263)

On a deeper lever, this sudden winning of a lady for sportive tricks does not undo the syllogism

of I.i.28-31; indeed, he says not “if I cannot prove a lover,” but “since I cannot.” He has

“determined to prove a villain”; it is not contingent upon a undetermined premise. Thus the

parody in I.ii.258-261: “Since I am crept in favor with myself”—a lover of himself, not Anne—

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“I will maintain it with some little cost. / But first I’ll turn yon fellow in his grave”—a pun on

I.ii.32’s “plots”—and then return lamenting”—not “caper[ing] nimbly”—“to my love.”

We therefore have Richard’s deformity presented in erotic terms. Paul too associated

unnaturalness with sexuality. In Romans 1:17ff. he contends that because men reject God, God

has given them over to “their hearts’ lusts” and “uncleanness” (24, Geneva Bible), which is

expressed in sexual terms as “against nature” (26-28) in connection with a list of “all

unrighteousness” (29-31). Anne, in being wooed, calls Richard’s deeds “unnatural,” who

“know’st nor law of God nor man” (I.ii.60, 70).

Here we can venture into Calvin’s understanding of sin and its effect, especially on the

body, as it relates to Richard. For Calvin, this passage (verse 26 specifically) “proves that men

have not only abandoned themselves to bestial desires, but have become worse than beasts, since

they have reversed the whole order of nature” (1.26). To return to Romans 7: “When man is left

to his own nature, he is completely borne away by his lust without any resistance,” and this

makes sinners’ transgression of the law “something sub-human” (7.15), “devoid of

understanding, because their soul has lost its reason (anima a ratione degenerate)” (7.22). Anne

uses similar words to describe Richard as a “lump of foul deformity,” “inhuman . . . Villain,” an

“infection of a man” (I.ii.57, 57, 60-70, 78). Margaret’s words rival Calvin’s dire vocabulary:

Richard is called a dog several times, as well as a “rooting hog,” a “bottled spider,” a “poisonous

bunch-back’d toad” (I.iii.227, 241, 245), and, more to the point, a “slave of nature and the son of

hell” (229): “Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him, / And all their ministers attend on

Musser 16

him” (292-293). Sin, death, and hell are intimately connected for Calvin, and the unregenerate

are under the control of devils.21

The regenerated Christian is just as debased except that he has a second spirit imputed to

him. The regenerate is a “twofold creature”: totally depraved, but given a “spirit [that] takes the

place of the soul in man,” since “the flesh . . . is the corrupt and polluted soul” (7.22). Although

the regenerate “still surpasses the brutes, his true excellence has been taken from him, and what

remains is filled with innumerable corruptions, so that, in so far as his soul is degenerate, it may

rightly be said to have changed into his body” (7.24).

The body for Calvin, therefore, is intimately affected by sin. We may be therefore

inclined to take Richard to function as a sort of Reformation Vice character—as wretchedness

perhaps: “Thus, like the formal Vice, Iniquity, / I” (III.i.82-83). Although Richard as a Protestant

Iniquity may not be the most complete reading (e.g., the comedic character of Vice does not

match the damned seriousness of Calvin), it is still prominently presented in the text. As Queen

Elizabeth says, nature is to Richard as heaven is to hell (IV.iv.352-354).Richard’s character,

however, cannot be reduced to a Protestant allegory.

2.2 Richard’s Catholic Self-Determining

The tension between Richard’s autonomy and the role of providence looms large over the play,

and once again I do not profess to do justice to the literature on Machiavelli, predestination, and

the like, which would be a paper—a book—unto itself.22

For our purposes, we can again locate a

21 For the latter, see, e.g. Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (Edinburgh: The

Calvin Translation Society), 1845, Book 1, Chapter 14, Section 18: “God thus turning the unclean spirits hither and

thither at his pleasure, employs them in exercising believers by warring against them . . . but never conquering or

oppressing them; whereas they hold the wicked in thraldom, exercise dominion over their minds and bodies, and

employ them as bond-slaves in all kinds of iniquity.” The former, of course, is evident throughout Calvin’s works. 22

The best, brief account of this that I’ve found is in Janis Lull’s introduction in King Richard III, , 1-51, op. cit.

Musser 17

particular space in which Shakespeare dramatizes conflicting worldviews. We again return to

Richard’s opening monologue.

Richard tells the audience “I am determined to prove a villain,” and “determined” carries

two meanings (I.i.30): first and simply, in the sense of resolved; secondly, in the sense of

predetermined. Only the first can naturally be meant, though the second’s overtones are clear,

perhaps since the meaning is so contradictory: one can’t predetermine oneself (or anything); God

does that. Indeed, a robustly Protestant reading would have us read the one as the other: to

purpose to do something freely is as impossible as to predetermine something. Calvin may as

well be speaking of Richard when he says that “Since carnal man rushes into the lust of sinning

with the whole inclination of his mind, he appears to be sinning with as free a choice as if it were

in his power to govern himself” (7.15). Thus there is also a pun on “prove” in the opening

monologue: Richard endeavors to be villain, but he in fact only demonstrates himself to be one.

Here and throughout the play, Richard seems to be governing himself and determining the course

of events. Ultimately, however, Richard falls from this putative place of god-like power, and we

see Richard as part of a larger determination.

In his Institutes, Calvin often discusses King Saul as a foil for Saul of Tarsus—St. Paul,23

and here we can locate an oblique connection to Richard. Calvin is fond of referencing 1 Samuel

18:10: “And it came to pass on the morrow, that the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he

prophesied in the midst of the house: and David played with his hand, as at other times: and

[there was] a javelin in Saul's hand” (Geneva Bible). Amidst some other David’s “lascivious

pleasing of a lute,” Richard, like Saul, is aiming to strike, even “By drunken prophecies” (33ff.).

For Calvin, Saul represents the reprobate that suffers under the will of God:

23 St. Paul is even referred to as Saul after his conversion in Acts 13:2.

Musser 18

Moreover, that the ministry of Satan is employed to instigate the reprobate,

whenever the Lord, in the course of his providence, has any purpose to

accomplish in them, will sufficiently appear from a single passage. It is repeatedly

said in the First Book of Samuel, that an evil spirit from the Lord came upon Saul,

and troubled him, (1Sa 16:14; 18:10; 19:9). Every thing necessary to vindicate the

majesty of God from calumny, and cut off any subterfuge on the part of the

ungodly, has already been expounded in the Chapters on Providence, (1.16 - 1.18).

Here I only meant to show, in a few words, how Satan reigns in the reprobate, and

how God works in both. (Institutes, 2.4, §5)

Lady Margaret is also a self-proclaimed prophet (I.iii.300), but she, like Richard, does not

understand the full scope of God’s providence and her own sinfulness. As Janis Lull points out,

“Margaret gives voice to the belief, encouraged by the growing Calvinism of the Elizabethan era,

that individual historical events are determined by God . . . . Yet her vision of Richard as a

providential agent or ‘scourge of God’ is both limited and biased,” since she too is guilty and

thus punished in God’s providence for her sins against the Yorks, as Richard and the others note

in I.iii.172-84.24

I believe Lull missteps, however, in contrasting this Calvinist determinism with

Richard “representing a secular theory of history that finds the causes of human events in

individual actions rather than in providential will.”25

It is perhaps imposing a contemporary

secularist individualism onto Richard rather than recognizing Richard more contemporaneously

as a caricature of the unregenerate man; more specifically, perhaps, as an instance of semi-

Pelagian Catholicism, presumptuously asserting a free will to choose one’s course, “if not to

heaven, then . . . to hell” (V.iii.313). Certainly Richard bears Machiavellian elements, but against

the overtly Calvinistic language of the play, Richard is more rightly seen as a presumptuous

sinner. “This most pernicious opinion has been almost universally accepted,” says Calvin, “that

man by his own natural powers can choose either course [of sanctification or damnation as] he

pleases without the assistance of divine grace” (Romans, 7.15).

24 Lull, “Introduction,” 6-7.

25 Ibid., 7.

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In the wake of the Reformation, many Catholics asserted the Church’s teaching on free

will at the cost of God’s providence. The Council of Orange condemned the semi-Pelagian

teaching that God’s grace clears the way for us to freely choose salvation; rather God’s grace

always precedes and accompanies our free choosing of the good. This distinction, however, was

often overlooked during the Middle Ages and only really rediscovered during the Catholic

Renewal.26

Erasmus, for instance, argued the semi-Pelagian line in his controversies with

Luther.27

Such instances only aggravated the Protestants.

Here we should note that, although providence is everywhere invoked in the play, it is

almost only Richard who invokes the saints.28

Richmond does reference “Saint George,” though

it is more of a nationalistic rallying cry than a spiritual invocation: “God and Saint George!

Richmond and victory!” (V.iii.270). Richard twice mentions the patron saint of England, once as

an aside that besides his strong army, he has “Saint George to boot,” and during his own rallying

cry, in which Richard not only marks the Saint as “Our ancient word of courage, fair Saint

George,” but even prays for the saint’s assistance: “Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons!”

(V.iii.349-350) Richard is the only explicitly Catholic character in a play set prior to the

Reformation, and he is quite intentionally—if not pejoratively—marked as Catholic.

Richard’s thrice swears by St. Paul29

and twice invokes St. George in the context of

violence. His swearing by St. John in I.i.138 is not directly in the context of violence (see145-

162), though it is in the context of feigning sympathy for the sickly king. His swearing by

26 Even Aquinas unwittingly held the semi-Pelagian position in his early writings.

27 See, e.g., Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation, ed. E. Gordon Rupp and Philip S. Watson (Philadelphia:

The Westminster Press, 1999). 28

I’m excluding, of course, “marry,” which has ceased to function as an invocation. Interestingly, the number of

references to St. Paul equals the instances of “marry” in the play. 29

“Villains set down the corse, or, by S. Paul, / I’ll make a corse of him that disobeys” (I.ii.36-37); “Advance thy

halberd higher than my breast, Or by Saint Paul I’ll strike thee to my foot” (I.ii.41); “Off with his head; now by

Saint Paul I swear, I will not dine until I see the same” (III.iv.76-77).

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“God’s holy Mother” likewise feigns sympathy for Margaret (I.iii.305), and his swearing “By

holy Paul” in I.iii.45 feigns offence and innocence. Buckingham also swears “by the holy Mother

of our Lord” (III.vii.2), and is the only one besides Richard so to do (and his key scene

importantly parallels Richard’s—see below). Only after his restless night in V.iii does Richard

sincerely swear “By the apostle Paul” that “shadows to-night / Have strook more terror to the

soul of Richard / Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers / Armed in proof and led by

shallow Richmond” (216-219).

Most unsettling, perhaps, is Richard’s final invocation, in which St. George is asked to

give Richard and his men the “spleen of fiery dragons”—that which St. George is famous for

destroying. Richard’s prayer, therefore, is in a sense self-defeating, if not unintelligible. The

exclusive coupling of Richard with invocating the saints in a hypocritical, contradictory manner

causes him to stand out religiously from the other characters, coupling his Catholicism with his

evil nature. Almost everyone in the play is guilty of sin in some respect, but only Richard flaunts

it and mixes it explicitly with religion:

But then I sigh, and with a piece of scripture,

Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:

And thus I clothe my naked villainy

With odd old ends stol’n forth of holy writ,

And seem a saint, when most I play the devil. (333-337; cf. 305-318)

Richard is portrayed as an evil Catholic, knowingly subverting true religion for his diabolical

ends.

2.3 Richard’s Conscience

So far Richard seems to be presented according to a Protestant worldview, for he seems clearly

to dramatize a Calvinist theology of the unregenerate as a caricatured, semi-Pelagian Catholic.

Musser 21

When it comes to considering the sinner’s conscience in the play, however, I will show that

Shakespeare gives have a much more nuanced religious presentation.

For Calvin, only the regenerate struggle with their conscience per se.

[I]t should be noted that this conflict mentioned by the apostle does not exist in

man until he has been sanctified by the Spirit of God. When man is left to his own

nature, he is completely borne away by his lust without any resistance. . . . The

stings of conscience by which they are afflicted proceed from a contradiction of

judgment, rather than from the contrary affection of the will. (Romans, 7.15)

Tomson’s notes assume that this is straightforward: “This [inner struggle] indeed is appropriate

to the man whom the grace of God has made a new man: for where the Spirit is not, how can

there be any strife there?” (7:18, note a). Any apparent struggles are “permit[ted] . . . torments”

that

reveal his [God’s] judgment to them in some way, but not to move them either

with a love of righteousness or with a hatred of sin. . . . [T]hey retain a distinction

between right and wrong [but] . . . Nevertheless they approve of sin with all their

heart, and therefore yield to it without any feeling of genuine repugnance. (Calvin,

Romans, 7.15)

Is this the picture of the unregenerate conscience in Richard III?

There are two parallel scenes in which a sinner wrestles with his conscience but does not

repent: Clarence’s nightmare and conversation with Brakenbury (I.vi) and Richard’s night

hauntings and his self-dialogue (V.iii). Although neither repents, they do appear to genuinely

struggle with their conscience. This is inconsistent with Reformed theology, however, which

maintains that the depravity of man compromises the moral capabilities of the unregenerate such

that they have no conscience.

There is a discourse on conscience in Richard III by none other than two murderers sent

by Richard to kill Clarence. Murderer 1 first questions the deed for fear that Clarence will say it

was “cowardly” to kill him while he slept (101). Murderer 2 jokingly answers he could only say

Musser 22

so on “Judgment day,” but the word Judgment pricks his conscience—it “hath bred a kind of

remorse in [him]” (102-107). Murderer 1 seems to move from avoidance of a (natural) vice,

cowardice, towards being unwilling to commit the act, implying an understanding of the virtues,

however faint. Murderer 2 seems moved by a greater (Christian) fear, that of God’s punishment,

which moves him towards remorse. Both seem at this point to go counter to Calvin’s account of

the conscience, unless they are really only conflicted in the flesh. Indeed, recalling the reward for

their foul deed drives out (mostly) their conscience which warns of judgment (123-130), whether

natural or Christian.

Yet Murderer 2’s speech on conscience (134-145) is more ambiguous. He connects

cowardice and conscience in another way. Conscience makes man a coward to do the things of

“liv[ing] well,” like swearing and adultery: “it fills a man full of obstacles.” Humorously, he

recalls that his conscience made him “once restore a purse of gold that (by chance) [he] found.”

While the terms are inverted, what we actually see here is the workings of a genuine conscience,

one that—damn it—makes one do the right thing and avoid the wrong. While Murderer 1

persists that it is cowardice to yield to conscience (261, 279), Murderer 2 yields to his conscience

and “repent[s]” (278). Such a conscience in a would-be-murderer doesn’t fit Calvin’s model.

For Aquinas, even the unregenerate mind, though impoverished, retains its natural ability

to seek the good and avoid evil, that is, to cultivate the natural virtues. Justice is justice, whether

one is in a state of grace or not. Indeed, even the unregenerate—and especially the regenerate—

are able to deliberate and are capable of making right, moral choices. Such a Thomistic vision of

conscience fits better here, especially since, of the two very similar and intertwined murderers,

one kills, while the second “repent[s],” as if to say, contra Calvin, that both options are open

(278).

Musser 23

We might say the same about Clarence’s and Richard’s dreams, and their respective

outcomes. Clarence, referring to himself as “a Christian faithful man,” has a “miserable night, /

So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights . . . . So full of dismal terror was the time” (I.iv.2-7). So

far Clarence seems to comport with Calvin’s miserable perfect who are “liable to death”

(Romans, 7.24). Yet in the dream he is declared “false” by Warwick’s spirit (49-51), Richard

says that he did bloodily “forsake” his “father[-in-law]” (I.iii.134), and Prince Edward, whom he

killed, calls him “false, fleeting, perjur’d” and therefore calls the “Furies” to take him down to

hell ((I.iv.55; 57). Clarence admits to doing these acts (and perhaps others), and refers to them as

“sin” which he shares with Richard, prompted by “brother’s love, the devil, and my rage” (66-75;

211, 223). Again, false affections, the devil, and sin are closely connected in the text, as in

Calvin’s reading of Romans.

How does Clarence’s guilt affect his conscience, however? He does address “God,” but

he seems to doubt God’s mercy:

O God! if my deep pray’rs cannot appease thee,

But thou wilt be aveng’d on my misdeeds,

Yet execute thy wrath in me alone!

O, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children! (69-72)

Clarence mentions “deep pray’rs,” but does not here pray them, he does not here repent.

Clarence articulates the Calvinist position that God is not obligated to extend his mercy towards

us, that it is conditional on his will—we only deserve to be “aveng’d.” If we hope to be saved

from our sin, we must be repentant.

For since pardon and forgiveness are offered by the preaching of the Gospel, in

order that the sinner, delivered from the tyranny of Satan, the yoke of sin, and the

miserable bondage of iniquity, may pass into the kingdom of God, it is certain that

no man can embrace the grace of the Gospel without retaking himself from the

errors of his former life into the right path, and making it his whole study to

practice repentance. (Calvin, Institutes, 2.2, §1)

Musser 24

Yet Clarence does not seem repentant here. His “soul is heavy,” yet rather than pray, he “fain

would sleep”—he seeks temporal, rather than eternal comfort (75). Indeed, when he is advised

by Murderer 2 to “Make peace with God, for [he] must die,” Clarence rather continues to try to

make peace with them. He calls them to “Relent, and save [their] souls,” using religion—like

Richard—for gain in the present life rather than the next (256). He does not heed his conscience

and “practice repentance,” and therefore is presented as unregenerate to the end.30

What then of Richard’s conscience? Throughout the play, Richard seems to lack the

pangs of conscience, but in V.iii the ghosts of those he’s killed address him as he sleeps,

tormenting his soul. Indeed, Richard wakes violently, thinking himself without a horse and

wounded, crying “Have mercy, Jesu!” (177-178) Here Richard truly prophesies his end: “A

horse, a horse! my kingdom for a horse! Alarum. Enter Richard and Richmond; they fight;

Richard is slain” (V.iv.13-v.scene direction), recalling his “drunken prophecies, libels, and

dreams” of I.i, and his brag after wooing Anne (251-252): “My dukedom to a beggarly denier, / I

30 It is curious, however, that the Ghost of Clarence “pray[s]” for Richmond (V.iii.137), which would be impossible

in hell from both a Catholic perspective (since he presumably died unrepentant of mortal sin) and a Calvinist

perspective (only Christ intercedes for us from beyond [Institutes, 3.20, §19-28, especially §21]). Greenblatt,

however, insists that Shakespeare “saw that he could draw upon a range of traditions, including not only the

classical Hades and the popular Hell but also the banished realm of Catholic Purgatory,” not as reflecting or

projecting certain theologies, but simply that “the very possibility of ghosts was itself valuable theatrical capital”

(Hamlet in Purgatory, op. cit., 157). In Richard III, ghosts and dreams are “the experience of terror registered in the

imagination” (174): “The ghosts that haunt the characters of Richard III are the play’s principal emblems of the

intertwining of psychological terror, Machiavellian politics, and metaphysics. They are precipitates of fear, emblems

of alliances and enmities, and an element in the moral structure of the universe…. [T]hey are an ineradicable,

embodied, and objective power. They function as a memory of the murdered, a memory registered not only in

Richard’s troubled psyche…but also in the collective consciousness of the kingdom and in the mind of God” (179-

180). Such a description is strikingly similar to Nietzsche’s account of “bad conscience” (which includes collective

conscience and God) in On the Genealogy of Morals, which is appropriate considering that Greenblatt associates

Richard’s Machiavellian aspect with Nietzsche’s deconstruction of morality (179). See the Second Essay in

Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals, e.g. II.22: “man of the bad conscience has seized upon the presupposition

of religion so as to drive his self-torture to its most gruesome pitch of severity and rigor. Guilt before God: this

thought becomes an instrument of torture to him. He apprehends in ‘God’ the ultimate antithesis of his own

ineluctable animal instincts” (trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale, in On the Genealogy of Morals and

Ecce Homo [New York: Random House, 1967], 92). I’m not suggesting that we should, like Shaw, see Richard III

in Nietzschean terms—that rather misses the sincerely religious frame of the play—it is, perhaps, worth noting,

nevertheless if only to dismiss it in a Chestertonian fashion: “It was not that Shakespeare did not see the Nietzsche

idea; he saw it, and he saw through it” (G. K. Chesterton, “On Reading,” in The Common Man [New York: Sheed

and Ward, 1950], available online at http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/Common_Man.txt).

Musser 25

do mistake my person all the while!” The triumph of Richard’s “plots” which reach their height

more with the seduction of Lady Anne than at the gaining of the crown, is suddenly inverted,

undone, mis-taken. Gone is his confident pride despite his body, and he is left with “fear” and

“trembling flesh” (V.iii.181ff.). Does this distressed conscience lead him to “make an end of [his]

own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:21, Geneva Bible)?

After the restless sleep of V.iii, Richard wakes suddenly, troubled in soul—much like

Paul.

By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night

Have strook more terror to the soul of Richard

Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers

Armed in proof and led by shallow Richmond (216-219).

Indeed, Richard seems as split as St. Paul in Romans 7:14:

What do I fear? Myself? There's none else by.

Richard loves Richard, that is, I am I.

Is there a murtherer here? No. Yes, I am.

Then fly. What, from myself? Great reason why—

Lest I revenge. What, myself upon myself?

Alack, I love myself. Wherefore? For any good

That I myself have done unto myself?

O, no! Alas, I rather hate myself

For hateful deeds committed by myself.

I am a villain; yet I lie, I am not.

Fool, of thyself speak well. Fool, do not flatter.

Is Richard’s pained self-dialogue a dramatization of the sinner’s conscience, à la Aquinas, or just

the “stings of conscience” that the ungodly sometimes feel, what Calvin refers to as the torments

of God’s judgment?

Sometimes, also, they [the ungodly] are struck with horror on account of a sense

of their sin, so that they bear a kind of condemnation even in this life.

Nevertheless they approve of sin with all their heart, and therefore yield to it

without any feeling of genuine repugnance. (Calvin, Romans, 7.15)

Musser 26

Queen Margaret’s curse upon Richard is similar to how Calvin describes the sinner’s conscience

as a source of condemnation and horror:

The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul!

…

No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,

Unless it be while some tormenting dream

Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils! (221-226)

Margaret also, as in Calvin’s reading of Romans, connects evil with birth, sexual perversity, and

fleshly nature in relation to Richard, and marks him as one of the non-elect:

Thou that wast seal’d in thy nativity

The slave of nature and the son of hell!

Thou slander of thy heavy mother’s womb! (228-230)

Whether by Margaret’s curse or “heaven[’s]…grievous plague in store” (216), Richard, like the

murderers, complains that “coward conscience” “afflict[s]” him (179):

My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,

And every tongue brings in a several tale,

And every tale condemns me for a villain.

Perjury, perjury, in the highest degree;

All several sins, all us’d in each degree,

Throng to the bar, crying all, “Guilty! guilty!” (193-199)

How then does Richard respond to his guilt? Like Murderer 1 or Murderer 2? Neither, it seems;

or like Murderer 1, in that he is “without any feeling of genuine repugnance,” yet differently,

since he also has an “afflict[ed]” “conscience” (179)—he is, perhaps, “struck with horror . . . by

[his] sins” (Calvin, Romans, 7.15). Richard, taking a cue from the ghosts, concludes that he

“shall despair” (200). As with Clarence, Richard’s cognizance of spiritual despair (216-219)

quickly transpires into—indeed, is bracketed by—temporal fear and insecurity:

O Ratcliffe, I have dream’d a fearful dream!

What think’st thou—will our friends prove all true?

. . . . O Ratcliffe, I fear, I fear!

. . . . ’Tis not yet near day. Come, go with me,

Under our tents I’ll play the ease-dropper,

Musser 27

To see if any mean to shrink from me. (212-222)

Yet even the immediate worry, burdened by conscience, seems to pass as it did for Murderer 1.

As upon waking, he says “Soft, I did but dream / O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me”

(178-179). So too, after his fit of self-hate and fear of others, does he say, “Let not our babbling

dreams affright our souls; / Conscience is but a word that cowards use” (V.iii.308-309). His

“strong arms” of war (311) have replaced his “trembling flesh” (181) and become his

“conscience”; he “[m]arch[es] on . . . bravely . . . pell-mell; / If not to heaven, then . . . to hell”

(311-313). His fears, however, prove true: Lord Stanley comes not, and again “A thousand hearts

are great within [his] bosom” (342-347). Richard dies offstage, so we cannot say whether or not

his last words following “horse” were again “Have mercy, Jesu!”

Musser 28

3. Conclusion: Tragedy, Theology, and Theatre

And Richard falls in height of all his pride!

Ghost of Buckingham, Richard III, V.iii.17631

Although we may reasonably consider Richard III to be a tragedy regardless of its title (as we

might with The Merchant of Venice), the fact that it is generally, but not always, referred to as a

“tragedy” may give us a special reason to consider the matter. The First Folio (1623) presents

Richard III as the end of a history tetralogy, following Henry VI, Parts 1-3. Early versions of

Henry VI—Harey Vj, The First part of the Contention…., and The True Tragedie of Richard

Duke of Yorke…—are now generally doubted as sources; for our purposes it is enough to note

that the latter two refer to tragedy in their titles.32

Indeed, there is no clear-cut distinction

between tragedy and history; Julius Caesar, after all, is a “tragedy,” not a “history.” Richard III,

notably, is the only “history” in the folio to continue to be referred to as a tragedy.33

I shall argue

that this is not simply a remnant of its former titles, but a meaningful description of the play.

Why—or how—is Richard III tragic?

3.1 Tragedy and Agency

We can identify a general or minimal way in which Richard III is a tragedy, and in what specific

and Christian way it is tragic. Chaucer, by way of “The Prologue of the Monk’s Tale,” offers a

31 Cf. Isaiah 13:11 and related passages.

32 The full titles are: The Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, with the death of the

good Duke Humphrey: And the banishment and death of the Duke of Suffolke, and the Tragicall end of the proud

Cardinal of Winchester, with the notable Rebellion of Jack Cade: and the Duke of Yorke's first claim unto the

crowne, and The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, and the death of good King Henrie the Sixt, with the

Whole Contention betweene the two Houses, Lancaster and Yorke. For a concise summary of textual issues and

dating, see Herschel Baker’s introductions to Henry VI, 1-3, 623-629, and to Richard III, 748-751, in The Riverside

Shakespeare, op. cit., and cf. Janis Lull’s “Note on the Text,” in King Richard III, 52-54, and “Textual Anaysis,” in

King Richard III, 219-229, op. cit. 33

It should be noted, perhaps, that the title The Tragedy of Richard III is only in the opening pages; subsequently it

is referred to as “the Life and Death of Richard the Third.”

Musser 29

basic definition of tragedy: “Tragedie is to seyn a certeyn storie . . . Of hym that stood in greet

prosperitee, / And is yfallen out of heigh degree /Into myserie, and endeth wrecchedly.”34

Although the Monk rather notably talks of tragedy in pagan terms of “fortune,” bordering on

pagan stoicism, the minimal definition is still helpful.35

For our purposes, it is noteworthy that

the first tragic figure is Lucifer himself, and next Adam, also Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Nero,

and a host of similarly irrefutable leaders and kings. Tragic figures need not our moral sympathy;

indeed, tragedy often works against our normal sentiments of sympathy—as Coriolanus makes

plain.

I suggest that there are at least two ways to understand portrayals of tragedy. First,

tragedy as stoic beauty: even the ill-fated life achieves some kind of honor—even if bitter-

sweet—for acting rightly without the fitting consequence. More generally, there is sympathy for

the character and situation. Unwarranted suffering happens, in different degrees, to all of us, thus

there is a cathartic aspect to its depiction, especially in such an extreme fashion, which we

identify with. We may call this classical or cathartic tragedy, as it fits most classical accounts of

tragedy that display the limits of human knowledge and freedom, portraying the tragic hero as

one fated to suffer despite having acted properly. Sophocles’ Oedipus, for instance, rightly

pledges justice for the slain King Laius, not knowing that he was the killer. Sophocles’ Antigone

freely chooses to do the right thing, bury her brother, even though it means certain death. In this

way, tragedy acts as a check on eudemonism: right living does not guarantee flourishing; human

ignorance and vulnerability are part of the human experience.

34 Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Prologue of the Monk’s Tale,” The Canterbury Tales, 240-241, in The Riverside Chaucer,

3rd ed., ed. Larry D. Benson (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1987), 241. 35

Indeed, it is not far from Brackenbury’s speech, “Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours” (Richard III, I.iv.76-

83). Cf. Job 17:11-12 in the Geneva Bible.

Musser 30

The second sense of tragedy is more pessimistic. This understanding insists that tragedy

remains incomprehensible, defying sympathetic or metaphysical resolutions. The beauty of

tragedy’s portrayal does not override our sense that this should not have happened. Our

experience of tragedy in this way is one of lament.

Perhaps the most tragic figures are those with whom we cannot sympathize, but only pity

for their irreparable loss. Tragedy as lament is heightened when the tragic figure is not

inextricably thrown into the tragic situation, where the consequences of events and actions

remain open, subject to real choices rather than fate pure and simple. Shakespeare’s tragedies

often exhibit this modern trait, where tragic consequences depend more on free choices than on

the alignment of stars. Hamlet’s revenge, for instance, could have avoided tragedy if he had

simply killed Claudius when he had the chance, if he had not been so wild with Ophelia, and so

forth.

One might argue that this feature of tragedy is simply a more complex account of fate,

that the tragic figure begins a course of events that cannot be reversed. That characters like

Hamlet act according to their nature, indirectly determined by socialization, genetics, God, or the

like—Hamlet’s mental instability prevented him from pursuing justice properly, etc. This, I think,

would be to belittle the role of moral agency at work in many of Shakespeare’s tragedies.

Reductionist accounts of choice and fate undermine the very drama and moral force of tragedy.

Othello’s moral collapse lacks force if we don’t question his ready interest in Iago’s libel.

Some tragedies are intensified by being preventable, the end more calamitous because the

tragic figure could have acted otherwise. Shakespeare, as I’ve argued, places moral autonomy at

the heart of Richard III. Whereas The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet depicts “star-crossed lovers”

caught in a “misadventured piteous” situation that “nought could remove” (I.Prol.6, 7, & 11),

Musser 31

The Tragedy of Richard III begins by his declaring that “since [he] cannot prove a lover,” he is

“determined to prove a villain” (I.i.29 & 31). Richard is deliberately choosing one course of

action over another as the putative master of his own fate. This is not simply a Machiavellian

inversion of Calvinist determinism, where the individual will is pitted against a historically

determined outcome; the entire play centers on real moral agency.

Despite the Calvinist language and framework in which the play is cast, the theology of

Richard III is not consistently Reformed, notably on the issue of conscience and moral agency.

Although the pains of conscience for Richard and Clarence may just be a foreshadowing of

God’s punishment, as Calvin would have it, the Murderers’ debate and differing reactions to

their consciences implies real moral agency in response to conscience—i.e. sinners have a

conscience. Indeed, the linguistic parallels of Richard’s wrestling with his conscience and the

end of his life are left open: we do not know if Richard again calls on Christ for mercy as he

again calls for a horse.

Moral autonomy—even for the unregenerate—is central to the drama and the meaning of

Richard III. A Catholic understanding of a sinner’s conscience and contrition lingers in this

otherwise Calvinist—if not anti-Catholic—play. At the very least, the Catholic concept of the

sinner’s conscience has “theatrical capital” akin to ghosts and purgatory (Greenblatt) and the

sacrament of penance (Beckwith).36

3.2 Theology and Theatre

What makes us care about Richard? Theatrically, we cannot help but be seduced by him. I argue

that theology works—or should work—in a similar way. Grace is like sexual desire, as Rowan

36 Greenblatt, Hamlet in Purgatory, op. cit.; Sarah Beckwith, Shakespeare and the Grammar of Forgiveness (Ithaca,

NY: Cornell University Press, 2011).

Musser 32

Williams explains, because they both are an inexplicable call to relational intimacy: “Grace, for

the Christian believer, is a transformation that depends in large part on knowing yourself to be

seen in a certain way: as significant, as wanted.”37

Richard III dramatizes both the perversion of

sexual desire as a means of power and control—what Williams calls “‘asymmetrical’ sexual

practices38

–and the rejection of grace via their conscience by some for temporal interests. These

two are linked for Richard.

Richard is therefore a tragic figure in that we lament his moral and spiritual acts—he

could do otherwise—as they relate to his fall and the Fall. From a Christian perspective, the fall

into eternal damnation is worse than the fall from power. Adam, of course, figures the Fall, and

any subsequent rejection of God is a recapitulated fall. The rejection of the Second Adam’s grace,

moreover, is an even greater fall, perhaps; whereas Adam’s fall, especially from Augustine

onwards, is likened to what we might call “child-foolish[ness]” (I.ii.141), the Christian’s fall is

inexplicable, unconscionable, likened to an adult overreaching his finitude—not unlike Richard.

Christopher Marlowe’s Tragical History of Dr. Faustus, written around the time of

Richard III, explicitly typifies this super-adult, super-human fall. Faustus exceeds the child-like

Adam and the earthly kings of the Monk in his learned study and magical power. In Scene 1,

Faustus announces that he has mastered “Aristotle’s works,” the medicine of “Galen,” the law of

“Justinian,” and “divinity”—which he rejects, notably, upon quoting St. Paul’s words (Romans

6:23) and those of St. John (1 John 1:8).39

What’s left is the “metaphysics of magicians.”

Whereas “Emperors and kings / Are but obeyed in their several provinces . . . A sound magician

37 Rowan D. Williams, “The Body’s Grace,” in Theology and Sexuality: Classic and Contemporary Readings, 309-

321, ed. Eugene F. Rogers, Jr. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), 313. 38

Ibid. 39

Quotations are from the Unabridged Dover (1994) republication of The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus from The

Chief Elizabethan Dramatists Excluding Shakespeare, ed. William Allan Neilson (the Riverside Press, Cambridge,

1911).

Musser 33

is a mighty god.” Faustus ultimately meets his tragic end, being “depriv’d . . . of the joys of

heaven”—what the Chorus calls a “hellish fall” (Scene XIV). Richard’s spiritual end, however,

is left open.

In a minimal sense, then, Richard III recounts Richard’s fall from power; in a Christian

sense, Richard III recounts his continuing in a fallen state. However “hellish” Richard’s fall may

be, we should not overemphasize his depravity (as a Protestant Vice figure) or his humanity (as a

kind of Byronic hero à la the romanticized Satan of Paradise Lost). If we do, the complex

theological drama of Richard III is lost. For just as St. Paul is both the greatest apostle and “the

chief of sinners,” so too is Richard a devil and yet human. If Shakespeare is indeed recasting a

medieval character, it is the Everyman as much as Vice. Richard’s moral autonomy and struggles

with conscience leave his spiritual and moral end (literally) open, even if his political and mortal

fall is certain.

Like the delicate rhetoric of St. Paul’s letters which simultaneously berates a church for

its sinfulness and praises the same for its godliness (e.g. 2 Cor. 1-2.4), mutatis mutandis, we are

to both despise and empathize with Richard, vis-à-vis our own souls. “Shakespeare has not made

Richard so black a monster as is supposed,” Charles Lamb reminds us in a letter to Robert Lloyd,

“But he is generally a Man.”40

Perhaps Shakespeare “set out to paint a monster, but his human

sympathies produced a man.”41

Perhaps Catholic sympathies were also at play; at the very least,

Richard is not “totally depraved,” for his conscience remains intact, if damaged. And we may

hope that Richard, off stage, finally heeds the prick of conscience and the call of grace.

40 Charles Lamb “From Cooke’s Richard III [1802],” in Richard III, 178-179, ed. Mark Eccles (New York: Signet,

1998), 177. 41

Ibid.

Musser 34

Appendix

Geneva Bible42

14 For we know that the Law is spiritual:

but I am carnal, sold under sin. 15

For I allow not that which I do:

for what I would, that do I not:

but what I hate, that do I. 16

If I do then that which I would not,

I consent to the Law, that it is good. 17

Now then, it is no more I, that do it,

but the sin that dwelleth in me 18

For I know, that in me, that is, in my flesh,

dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present

with me; but I find no means to perform

which is good. 19

For I do not the good thing, which I

would, but the evil, which I would not, that

do I. 20

Now if I do that I would not, it is no more

I that do it, but the sin that dwelleth in me. 21

I find then by the Law, that when I would

do good, evil is present with me. 22

For I delight in the Law of God,

concerning the inner man: 23

But I see another law in my members,

rebelling against the law of my mind, and

leading me captive unto the law of sin,

which is in my members. 24

O wretched man that I am, who shall

deliver me from the body of this death? 25

I thank God through Jesus Christ our

Lord. Then I my self with the mind serve the

law of God, but in the flesh, the law of sin.

42 A transcribed version (1599), including the notes,

is available online at

http://www.reformedreader.org/gbn/gbnromans.htm.

The 1599 version is essentially the 1576 version with

Laurence Tomson’s annotations and a new version of

Revelation with new commentary by Franciscus

Junius (which, textually, is essentially that of the

1560 original). I have here produced a modern

transliteration of the 1560 text.

Douay-Rheims43

14

For we know that the law is spiritual;

but I am carnal, sold under sin. 15

For that which I work, I understand not;

for not that which I will, the same do I:

but which I hate, that I do. 16

And if that which I will not, the same I do:

I consent to the Law, that it is good. 17

But now, not I work it any more,

but the sin that dwelleth in me. 18

For I know that there dwelleth not in me,

that is to say, in my flesh, good. For to will,

is present with me; but to accomplish that

which is good, I find not. 19

For not the good which I will, that do I:

but the evil which I will not, that I do. 20

And if that which I will not, the same I do:

now not I work it but the sin that dwelleth in

me. 21

I find therefore the Law, to me having a

will to do good, that evil is present with me. 22

For I am delighted with the Law of God

according to the inward man: 23

But I see another law in my members,

repugning [sic] to the law of my mind, and

captiving [sic] me in the law of sin, that is in

my members. 24

Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver

me from the body of this death? 25

The grace of God, by Jesus Christ our

Lord. Therefore I myself with the mind

serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the

law of sin.

43 Facsimile (1582) available at

http://gallica.bnf.fr/document?O=N053352.