Wilson 1 Jeffrey R. Wilson Harvard University Stigmatizing Richard III’s Deformities up to Shakespeare’s 2 Henry VI: The Figural Paradigm Academic Information Text: This essay concerns the representation of Richard III’s deformities in sixteenth-century English literature up to and including Shakespeare’s 2 Henry VI. Occasion: It is easy to see why sixteenth-century English writers stigmatized the physical deformity of Richard III as a way to legitimize the Tudor dynasty, but I want to ask how, rhetorically, those writers went about the process of that stigmatization. That is, how did historians draw upon the resources of literary representation to make Tudor history into Tudor mythology, to make Richard the man into Richard the monster. Method: Thomas Kuhn’s constructivist reading of scientific knowledge can help us see how Tudor writers invented and sustained a reading of Richard’s body that flew in the face of fact and reason. Terms: In Kuhn’s lexicon, a paradigm is a pattern or model of scientific practice. Thesis: I would like to propose the existence of a paradigm for the representation of Richard III’s deformities in sixteenth-century English literature. I call this paradigm the figural paradigm because Tudor writers treated the deformity of Richard’s body at birth as a figure for both his villainous life and his tragic death. That is, deformity figured both villainy and tragedy. Stakes: Kuhn’s theory of paradigms helps us recognize the inconsistent treatment of Richard’s deformity in a pre-paradigm period during the reign of Henry VII, the emergence of the figural paradigm in the age of Henry VIII, and the perpetuation of this paradigm by later Tudor writers up to and including William Shakespeare. At the same time, Kuhn’s notion of the anomaly provides us with a way of thinking about Shakespeare’s departure from the Tudor tradition with the suggestion that Richard’s body was not the sign but the cause of his villainy and eventual tragedy. Wilson 1 Jeffrey R. Wilson Harvard University Stigmatizing Richard III’s Deformities up to Shakespeare’s 2 Henry VI: The Figural Paradigm Basic Outline Thesis: I would like to propose the existence of a paradigm for the representation of Richard III’s deformities in sixteenth-century English literature. I call this paradigm the figural paradigm because Tudor writers treated the deformity of Richard’s body at birth as a figure for both his villainous life and his tragic death. That is, deformity figured both villainy and tragedy. I. Intro a. Para 1 i. Exemplar: The Duke of York in Shakespeare’s Richard III ii. Hist.Cit: Tillyard on the Tudor myth b. Para 2 i. Occasion: Not why but how Richard was stigmatized ii. Text: Richard III’s deformities in sixteenth-centuryEnglish literature c. Para 3 i. Method: Rhetorical analysis; Kuhn’s constructivist reading of science ii. Term: Paradigm iii. Thesis: The figural paradigm for Richard III’s deformities iv. Stakes: Shakespeare as both paradigmatic and anomalous II. Body a. Section 1 (Text.Ev): Inconsistent treatment of Richard in the pre-paradigm period i. Para 1: Rous ii. Para 2: Royal Collections Portrait b. Section 2 (Text.Ev): The emergence of a paradigm i. Para 1: Vergil ii. Para 2: More c. Section 3 (Text.Ev): The perpetuation of the paradigm i. Para 1: Hall, Rainolde ii. Para 2: Mirror for Magistrates d. Section 4: Holinshed (Text.Ev.) i. Subsection 1 (Hist.Ev): Monstrosity 1. Para 1: Monstrosity in Elizabethan England 2. Para 2: Richard’s Monstrosity in Legge ii. Subsection 2 (Hist.Ev): Physiognomy 1. Para 1: Aristotle on Physiognomy 2. Para 2: Physiognomy in the Renaissance e. Section 5 (Theor.Cit): Kuhn and Polanyi on “Tacit Knowledge” f. Section 6 (Hist.Ev./Hist.Cit.): Auerbach on “Figural Interpretation” Wilson 2 III. Conclusion a. Argument: Representation of Richard’s deformities manifests Auerbach’s theory of figural realism b. Utility: Shakespeare’s 2 Henry VI as paradigmatic c. Utility: Shakespeare’s 3 Henry VI as anomalous Wilson 1 Jeffrey R. Wilson Harvard University Stigmatizing Richard III’s Deformities up to Shakespeare’s 2 Henry VI: The Figural Paradigm Detailed Outline Introduction Exemplar: During a lull in Shakespeare’s Richard III, the king’s tiresome nephew, the young Duke of York, precociously gossips about his uncle’s unnatural body at birth, specifically the legend that Richard was born with teeth. • “They say my uncle grew so fast,” the youth whispers to Richard’s mother, “That he could gnaw a crust at two hours old.” • In the ensuing exchange, Shakespeare satirized the Tudor historians who trumped up and transmitted the legend of Richard’s prodigious birth: • Duch. I pray thee, pretty York, who told thee this? York. Grandam, his nurse. Duch. His nurse! Why, she was dead ere thou wert born. York. If ‘twere not she, I cannot tell who told me. (2.4.31-34) Hist.Cit: The gossipy discussion, exaggeration, and stigmatization of Richard’s deformity was part and parcel of what E. M. W. Tillyard called “the Tudor myth,” which he saw as the organizing force of Shakespeare’s history plays. • The Tudor myth suggests that Henry IV’s usurpation of Richard II, an anointed king ruling by divine right, prompted almost a century of disorder that culminated in the Wars of the Roses and Richard III, evil incarnate, usurping the English throne; calamity plagued England until Henry Tudor, the last Lancastrian and God’s lieutenant here on earth, cast Richard down at the Battle of Bosworth and, by marrying the heiress of the house of York, united the two rival dynasties. • Modern historians have charted how this myth was invented by chroniclers commissioned directly by the new king, Henry VII, and his son, Henry VIII, who himself fathered Elizabeth I, the Queen of England when Shakespeare wrote Richard III. • Historians have also discussed how the Tudor mythologers stigmatized, and sometimes invented, Richard’s physical deformity. • The recent discovery of Richard’s scoliotic skeleton has confirmed his physical deformity as a historical fact. • At the same time, the Tudor chroniclers turned Richard from a man with a physical deformity into a monster inside and out. Text: This essay concerns the representation of Richard III’s deformities in sixteenth-century English literature up to and including William Shakespeare’s 2 Henry VI. Occasion: Making Richard alternately a villain in the Tudor myth and a victim of the Tudor myth, the stigmatization of his deformity has provoked more passion than any other event in Wilson 2 England’s historical record: for centuries now, professional historians have indignantly dismissed the image of an evil, deformed tyrant, yet popular demagogues sheepishly preserve it. I am interested in neither denouncing nor excusing the stigmatization of Richard’s deformity. I want to show how it works and what it means. Obviously, the Tudor chroniclers mythologized their record for the sake of political legitimacy, and stigma was one way to demonize their enemy. It is easy to see why the Tudor writers stigmatized Richard, but I want to examine exactly how, rhetorically, these authors went about discrediting the king. Method: It is the literary quality of sixteenth-century history, and its cooperation with narrative verse and drama, that directs our interpretation of this tradition to the discipline of rhetoric. A rhetorical reading of Richard’s body can show how stigma is made, how physical deformity comes to acquire meaning, how the denigration of deformity is mixed up with moral commitments, motives, and assumptions – with, in short, a constructed view of nature. Thus, Thomas Kuhn’s constructivist reading of scientific knowledge can help us see how Tudor writers invented and sustained a reading of Richard’s body that flew in the face of fact and reason. Terms: In Kuhn’s lexicon, a “paradigm” is a pattern or model of scientific practice. Thesis: I would like to propose the existence of a paradigm for the representation of Richard III’s deformities in sixteenth-century English literature. I call this paradigm the figural paradigm because Tudor writers treated the deformity of Richard’s body at birth as a figure for both his villainous life and his tragic death. That is, deformity figured both villainy and tragedy. Theor.Cit.: As Kuhn describes it, a paradigm succeeds and achieves consensus because it helps a group of practitioners solve a pressing problem (23). If so, then Tudor chroniclers treated Richard’s deformity as a God-given sign of his evil mind, soul, or morals most obviously because this mystified metaphor helped them solve the political problem of the Tudor dynasty’s dubious claim to a divine right monarchy in England. As Kuhn notes, however, “The road to a firm research consensus is extraordinarily arduous” (15). Stakes: Kuhn’s theory of paradigms can help us recognize the inconsistent treatment of Richard’s deformity in a pre-paradigm period during the reign of Henry VII, the emergence of a paradigm in the age of Henry VIII, and the perpetuation of this paradigm by later Tudor writers up to and including William Shakespeare. At the same time, Kuhn’s notion of the anomaly provides us with a way of thinking about Shakespeare’s departure from the Tudor tradition with the suggestion that Richard’s body was not the sign but the cause of his villainy and eventual tragedy. Body Assert for Section: To see how Shakespeare was working with an established paradigm, we must trace the history of Richard’s deformity beyond its roots in a civil war, a bloody battle, and a scramble for political authority, and to the rush to find the rhetoric for remembering Richard during what Kuhn calls a “pre-paradigm” period (17).