Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Vance Adair

Critical Essay by Vance Adair

SOURCE: Adair, Vance. “Back to the Future: Subjectivity and Anamorphosis in Richard III.” Critical Survey 9, no. 3 (1997): 32-58.

In the following analysis of Richard III informed by Lacanian and poststructuralist theory, Adair draws thematic links between Richard's monstrous physical and psychological deformities and the drama's problematic representation of history.

… the unconscious is manifested to us as something that holds itself in suspense in the area, I would say, of the unborn.

I. Difficult Births

Having confounded his own expectations in the successful wooing of Lady Anne, Richard has recourse to a model of ego formation that, for modern audiences at least, has much in common with the Lacanian archetype:

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...
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