The deaths of the two princes of Richard III (1592) and young Prince Arthur in King John (1595-96) are pivotal moments in the dramatic structure of both plays. As with many of Shakespeare's children, their deaths are of more consequence, in terms of plot, structure, and overall narrative design, than their lives, and their dramatic significance is disproportionate to their relatively small number of lines. They not only precipitate the downfall of the main protagonists and drive the plots to their denouements, but they also create an absence into which the other characters can project their adult fantasies of childhood. These three young children have provided inspiration for paintings, films, historical novels, popular television dramas, and documentaries across the centuries. A morbid fascination with their premature demise reached its apotheosis in the nineteenth century, yet there is still a tendency to sentimentalize and aestheticize their deaths even today. With the discovery of King Richard III's body in a Leicester car park in 2012, there has been renewed interest in the fate of the two princes. James Northcote's 1785 painting of "The Murder of the Princes in the Tower," which was inspired by Shakespeare's play, remains one of their most enduring images (see figure 1). (2) However, although the deaths of both Arthur and the princes have provided inspiration for artistic fetishization, both in and beyond the theatre, the dramatization of their deaths in Shakespeare's texts is remarkably understated. The princes of Richard III die offstage, and Arthur's accidental death is notable more for its bathetic absence of sentimentality rather than for any feeling of pathos it evokes. The desire to aestheticize the deaths of these three children is therefore less an authentic interpretation of the original texts and more a reflection of a voyeuristic-scopophilic fascination arising out of a larger impulse to preserve and extend fantasies of childhood innocence--a fantasy that, as childhood scholars including James Kincaid and Anne Higonnet have observed, is shadowed by titillation, eroticism, and violation. (3) If childhood innocence is the opposite of adult sexuality, then it risks, according to this critical perspective, becoming alluringly off-limits. Kincaid explains as follows: "We see children as, among other things, sweet, innocent, vacant, smooth-skinned, spontaneous, and mischievous. We construct the desirable as, among other things, sweet, innocent, vacant, smooth-skinned, spontaneous, and mischievous. There's more to how we see the child, and more to how we construct what is sexually desirable--but not much more." (4) The deaths of the doomed young princes of Shakespeare's Richard III and King John are only constructed in this fetishistic way retrospectively through the rhetoric of the adults. To aestheticize their deaths in visual form is thus to undermine the intention of the original text. But more crucially, it also risks evoking the equivocal fantasy of childhood that Kincaid describes. In this essay, I argue that Shakespeare deliberately creates a dissonance between the idealizing rhetoric surrounding his three young princes and their embodied presence by refusing to sentimentalize or fetishize the deaths. The desire to make manifest what the plays obscure, to fill the absence with a body, reflects culturally and historically specific concerns surrounding childhood and what it represents rather than a faithful interpretation of Shakespeare's texts. In this essay, through a dialectical analysis of dramatic and artistic representation and close textual reading, I examine both the dramatic significance of this absence and the various and changing ways in which it has been filled. Through a brief history of the shifting fortunes of these children, I explore the ways in which their deaths have been fetishized and aestheticized, and consider the small but growing movement toward a return to the de-idealization of childhood that Shakespeare intended. …

中文翻译：

---

“很多次我为了他们的娱乐而折断了我的脖子”：莎士比亚的理查三世和约翰国王中的尸体、孩子和死亡美学

理查三世 (1592) 和年轻的亚瑟王子 (1595-96) 的两位王子的去世是这两部戏剧戏剧结构的关键时刻。与莎士比亚的许多孩子一样，他们的死在情节、结构和整体叙事设计方面比他们的生活更重要，而且他们的戏剧意义与其相对较少的台词不成比例。他们不仅促成了主要主角的垮台并将情节推向了结局，而且还创造了一种缺席，其他角色可以将他们成年后的童年幻想投射到其中。几个世纪以来，这三个年幼的孩子为绘画、电影、历史小说、流行电视剧和纪录片提供了灵感。对他们过早死亡的病态迷恋在 19 世纪达到了顶峰，但即使在今天，仍然存在将他们的死亡感伤和审美化的趋势。随着 2012 年在莱斯特停车场发现理查三世国王的尸体，人们重新对两位王子的命运产生了兴趣。詹姆斯·诺斯科特 (James Northcote) 于 1785 年创作的“塔中王子谋杀案”的画作受到莎士比亚戏剧的启发，仍然是他们最经久不衰的图像之一（见图 1）。(2) 然而，尽管亚瑟和王子们的死在剧场内外都为艺术迷恋提供了灵感，但莎士比亚文本中对他们的死亡的戏剧化却显着被低估了。理查三世的王子们在台下死去，而亚瑟” 其意外死亡更值得注意的是它完全没有多愁善感，而不是它所唤起的任何悲痛感。因此，将这三个孩子的死亡美学化的愿望与其说是对原始文本的真实解释，不如说是一种窥淫癖和窥视性的迷恋的反映，这种迷恋源于一种更大的冲动，即保护和扩展童年纯真的幻想——一种幻想，正如包括 James Kincaid 和 Anne Higonnet 在内的童年学者所观察到的，被挑逗、色情和侵犯所笼罩。(3) 如果童年的纯真与成人的性行为相反，那么根据这种批判的观点，它有可能成为诱人的禁区。金凯德解释如下：“我们认为孩子是可爱、天真、空虚、皮肤光滑、自发和顽皮的。我们将可取的事物构建为甜蜜、天真、空虚、皮肤光滑、自发和顽皮。更多的是我们如何看待孩子，更多的是我们如何构建性欲的东西——但仅此而已。”（4）莎士比亚的理查三世和约翰国王注定失败的年轻王子的死亡只是在这种拜物教中构建的回顾成年人的修辞。以视觉形式将他们的死亡审美化，因此破坏了原文的意图。但更重要的是，它也有可能唤起金凯德所描述的童年模棱两可的幻想。在这篇文章中，我认为莎士比亚故意在围绕他的三位年轻王子的理想化修辞与他们具体化的存在之间产生不协调，拒绝对死亡进行感伤或迷恋。想要表现出戏剧模糊的东西，用身体来填补缺席，反映了围绕童年及其所代表的文化和历史的特定关注，而不是对莎士比亚文本的忠实解释。在这篇文章中，通过对戏剧和艺术表现的辩证分析以及仔细阅读文本，我既考察了这种缺席的戏剧意义，也考察了这种缺席的各种变化方式。通过这些孩子命运变化的简史，我探索了他们的死亡被崇拜和审美化的方式，并考虑了莎士比亚打算回归童年去理想化的小而不断增长的运动。… 反映了围绕童年及其代表的文化和历史特定关注，而不是对莎士比亚文本的忠实解释。在这篇文章中，通过对戏剧和艺术表现的辩证分析以及仔细阅读文本，我既考察了这种缺席的戏剧意义，也考察了这种缺席的各种变化方式。通过这些孩子命运变化的简史，我探索了他们的死亡被崇拜和审美化的方式，并考虑了莎士比亚打算回归童年去理想化的小而不断增长的运动。… 反映了围绕童年及其代表的文化和历史特定关注，而不是对莎士比亚文本的忠实解释。在这篇文章中，通过对戏剧和艺术表现的辩证分析以及仔细阅读文本，我既考察了这种缺席的戏剧意义，也考察了这种缺席的各种变化方式。通过这些孩子命运变化的简史，我探索了他们的死亡被崇拜和审美化的方式，并考虑了莎士比亚打算回归童年去理想化的小而不断增长的运动。… 通过对戏剧和艺术表现的辩证分析以及仔细阅读文本，我检查了这种缺席的戏剧性意义以及它被填充的各种变化的方式。通过这些孩子命运变化的简史，我探索了他们的死亡被崇拜和审美化的方式，并考虑了莎士比亚打算回归童年去理想化的小而不断增长的运动。… 通过对戏剧和艺术表现的辩证分析以及仔细阅读文本，我检查了这种缺席的戏剧性意义以及它被填充的各种变化的方式。通过这些孩子命运变化的简史，我探索了他们的死亡被崇拜和审美化的方式，并考虑了莎士比亚打算回归童年去理想化的小而不断增长的运动。… 并考虑一下莎士比亚打算回归童年去理想化的小而不断增长的运动。… 并考虑一下莎士比亚打算回归童年去理想化的小而不断发展的运动。…