Preparing my Shakespeare Monologue (2): Some inspirations

(Image from Masterclass.com)

(Post: 1)

In which I check the other inspiration resources for my exercise.

So, aside from the text itself, specially my monologue, I have been searching for more inspirations to help me with this exercise. I already told you about the fragrance last Wednesday, and today I’ll tell you about the bibliography I have consulted, but also about certain pieces of music that remind me of Anne.

Here’s the list of books I’ve used so far (pretty much all highly recommended, and I’ll add links if you need them):

Editions of Richard III

• The Arden Shakespeare (Third series)
• New Cambridge Shakespeare
• Penguin Shakespeare

Biographies of Anne Neville

• Anne Neville: Richard III’s Tragic Queen – Amy Licence
• Anne Neville: Queen to Richard III (England’s Forgotten Queens)– Michael Hicks

Studies on the play/Shakespeare’s work

• Richard III: Language and Writing (Arden)
• Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s History Plays
• Shakespeare’s English Kings: History, Chronicle, and Drama
• The Hand on the Shakespearean Stage(Arden)

The playlist I have is equally as long, but I want to stop at two of the songs.

The first one is Max Richter’s On the Nature of Daylight, specially in the combo with the music video starring Elisabeth Moss (of Mad Men, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Us, aka the best movie this year) that you can see here:

Honestly, I felt that the emotional journey of the main character quite resembles that of what’s I imagine Lady Anne’s to be previous to her first scene in the play, her dealing with her feelings of mourning and helplessness but still soldiering on. Because she has no other chance, since everyone she knew is dead or might as well be. She’s got to make her own way in the world, as much as it hurts.

The second one is Clint Mansell’s Waves Crashing on Distant Shores of Time, from the Black Mirror episode San Junipero:

The piece brings me this sense of loneliness, but a loneliness that is at peace with itself. Even with all what she has gone through, and what she will go through, Anne seems to accept that this is the life she’s got to live. And that, even with all her suffering, this self-knowledge grants her a certain power over Richard that not even her own death will erase.

Next week I’ll post my thoughts after the rereading of the play.