Abstract
Thomas Hobbes disagreed with the ideas of previous thinkers about the existence of the state in the history of political philosophy, which made progress in the 17th century and made its way to the Age of Reason. He argues that humanity exists in a 'state of nature' when it is not a state and explains it in his work Leviathan. Most of the characters in Shakespeare's play Richard III have traces of Hobbes' concept of the natural state. As with many other characters created by Shakespeare for his plays prior to and following the publication of Richard III, the characters in this play seem to be either goal-oriented, with certain motives to carry out, or rather ignorant of the actions happening around them only to learn about them too late. The goals of the former characters and what they accomplish for these purposes are similar to those of Hobbes in terms of state and power. In particular, the conspiracies and theories that Richard's character has established reveal the state of nature and the impasse for a society that experiences an absence of power. In this study, Richard III, one of the earliest plays and the most controversial works of Shakespeare at the beginning of the Renaissance period, is analysed in the light of Hobbes' ideas. Within this context, a thorough examination of the play with regards to the actions and the statements made by the characters was conducted to prove the existence of Hobbes’ ideas as integrated into the play. The conclusion drawn is that the study indicated strong inclusion of Hobbes’ state of nature idea in the play as the tenets of the said idea is abundant throughout the work. Being a political playwright as well as a philosophy-driven writer, Shakespeare can be said to have employed Hobbes’ ideas and moulded them into living and breathing characters to show the possible calamities an absence of power may entail.
Highlights
As the church belief and scholastic thought built on the sovereignty of the people, which is one of the returns of the Middle Ages, starting in the 5th century AD and making its impact until the 12th century throughout the UK and Europe, was traded by the individual-focused Renaissance thought in the 15th century, a major period of ascension was prevailing in the English theatre, led by writers such as Shakespeare and Marlowe
Richard III, one of the most striking works that existed in this period relating to this, shows the validity level of the principles emphasized by Thomas Hobbes to the audience acting with the state of nature present in it and through a series of intrigues for the sake of power
In addition to the fact that examples of this are seen in the history scene, this situation, which has an important place in literature and philosophy, is a subject that has been highly discussed by important writers and thinkers as a condition to be learned in terms of both cause and effect
Summary
As the church belief and scholastic thought built on the sovereignty of the people, which is one of the returns of the Middle Ages, starting in the 5th century AD and making its impact until the 12th century throughout the UK and Europe, was traded by the individual-focused Renaissance thought in the 15th century, a major period of ascension was prevailing in the English theatre, led by writers such as Shakespeare and Marlowe. While many of the theories believed to exist in this fundamentalist system of thought were left to be sceptical with the enlightenments of Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton, Hobbes, who could not stay out of the bloody British Civil War and political actions in the state and had to endure the consequences of being away from his country, questioned the state structure in the light of the outcomes of this war In this regard, “Hobbes introduced a new law of nature which was of obvious relevance to questions raised by the English Civil War” (Sommerville, 1992: 30). “the absolute liberty of the individual has been renounced and transferred to a sovereign” (Moloney, 2011: 202)
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