Richard III (Vol. 39) | Nina S. Levine (essay date 1992)
Nina S. Levine (essay date 1992)
SOURCE: "'Accursed womb, the bed of death': Women and the Succession in Richard III" in Renaissance Papers 1992, edited by George Walton Williams and Barbara J. Baines, The Southeastern Renaissance Conference, 1993, pp. 17-27.
[In the following essay delivered as a paper at the 1992 Southeastern Renaissance Conference, Levine contends that Shakespeare 's treatment of women in Richard III reflects a contemporary political concern of Shakespeare's era: the end of the Tudor line due to the failure of Queen Elizabeth I to marry and produce a male heir.]
Shakespeare concludes his first tetralogy of English history plays with a fitting tribute to the Tudors. At the close of Richard III the victorious Richmond promises to heal the nation's wounds with his marriage to Elizabeth of York and solemnly prays that his heirs will "Enrich the time to come with smooth-fac'd peace, / With smiling...
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