[单项选择]King Richard III was a monster. He poisoned his wife, stole the throne from his two young nephews and ordered them to be smothered in the Tower of London. Richard was a sort of Antichrist the King --"that bottled spider, that poisonous bunchbacked toad."
Anyway, that was Shakespeare’s version. Shakespeare did what the playwright does: he turned history into a vivid, articulate, organized dream-repeatable nightly. He put the crouchback onstage, and sold tickets.
And who would say that the real Richard known to family and friends was not identical to Shakespeare’s memorably loathsome creation The actual Richard went dimming into the past and vanished. When all the eye-witnesses are gone, the artist’s imagination begins to twist.
Variations on the King Richard Effect are at work in Oliver Stone’s JFK. Richard III was art, but it was propaganda too. Shakespeare took the details of his plot from Tudor historians who wanted to blacken Richard’s name. Several centuries passed b
A. is often the stuff for artists’ fictions.
B. lies outside the field of history.
C. is the focus of public attention.
D. remains memorable at all times.