Failed Mothers, Monster Sons. Reading Shakespeare’S Richard Iii as a Fairy Tale

Abstract

The paper looks at Shakespeare’s historical play Richard III and its fairy tale-like character given by the configuration of the main character as an arch-villain and the presence of motifs and patterns typically associated with the fairy tale genre. More specifically, it considers the mother-son relationship between the Duchess of York and Richard in the light of the motif of monstrous birth. It is not a coincidence that the emergence of such motifs coincides with the historical contexts of the early modern period. Reading Richard III in this key is related to the revisionist approach to chronicle plays.

Keywords

• arch-villain
• fairy tale
• monster birth
• queenship
• revisionist reading