The Demon’s Amorous Looking Glass: Reflections on the Villain’s Performative Self-Fashioning in Richard III by William Shakespeare

This article seeks to bring to light the role of performativity in shaping the politics and poetics of visibility in Shakespeare’s Richard III. It argues that performative games of (in)visibility are at the center of the play’s narrative structure. The hero-villain of the play uses them in his machinations. As a theatrically conscious villain, Richard uses the visual to manipulate the other characters and subject them to his will. On the stage, he uses his own body as his principal means of deception. Indeed, rather than shying away from the public gaze because of his deformity, Richard wants to be seen—albeit on his own terms. He constantly fashions and refashions himself to control the manner in which he is perceived by others. In the play, Richard is presented primarily as an actor but he also plays the director and controls how bodies are distributed and perceived within the performative space. Space and visuality are key to understanding the theme of political intrigue in Richard III. By analyzing the performative politics of visuality in the play, this article attempts to explain how the distribution of the performing entities within the visible and invisible performative spaces determines the power relations between them.