SOURCE: McGrail, Mary Ann. “Richard III: That Excellent Grand Tyrant of the Earth.” In Tyranny in Shakespeare, pp. 47-76. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2001.

In the following essay, McGrail argues that Richard's belief that no one can love his deformed body is what drives him to seek vengeance against his world and the people in it.

And Set the Murderous Machiavel to School

Richard III is the only play by Shakespeare that begins with the title character on stage speaking alone. Without the repeated insights into Richard's energetic malevolence, which this and his later soliloquies afford us, the play would make most sense as a straightforward dramatization of the Tudor myth.¹ Richard offers us just such an oversimplification of historical fact in the first few lines of the play: “Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this son of York.”² This is the official version...