... pursued a vendetta against his sister-in-law Elizabeth Woodville and her ambitious brothers. It was this monster, a fiction generated by Tudor historians to legitimise the reign of Henry VII and the Tudor dynasty, which fired Shakespeare's imagination. What sort of play did Shakespeare create? One way of thinking about the drama is to see it as ... characters and episodes, Richard is always at the centre of attention, even when not on stage. There is no subplot or conventional romantic interest, for all events are part of Richard's rise and fall. The play is a searching examination of ...

• Word Count: 346
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School