Shakespeare, Richard III-VIII

Conscience and self-mastery

There is an intimate connection between the conscience and morality and language: we acquire much of our moral content when we learn a language, for example, when we learn words like theft, mercy, honesty, perjury, good, bad, polite, rude, etc. From Richard’s final soliloquy we see that he has never becomes a conscienceless Superman he wanted to be. That said, we should note that he, nevertheless, has the courage to be honest with himself, a courage that most people lack.