Shakespeare References in Season Of The Witch

David Talbot's book about San Francisco, Season Of The Witch: Enchantment, Terror, And Deliverance In The City Of Love, contains a few Shakespeare references. The first is a reference to A Midsummer Night's Dream. Talbot writes, "Coquettish in dark eyeliner, bare feet, and a white muslin caftan, he looked like a cross between Marlene Dietrich and Puck from A Midsummer Night's Dream" (p. 99). The second is a reference to Hamlet: "A lifetime later, Fayette Hauser could still see method in her friend Nancy's madness" (p. 117). That is a reference to Polonius's line "Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't." The book also contains a reference to Macbeth. Talbot writes, "But Moscone shrugged off the sound and fury" (p. 260). He is referring to my favorite speech from Macbeth (and perhaps all of Shakespeare), which ends with this line: "It is a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/Signifying nothing." A little later there is a paragraph that mentions Shakespeare as well as a line from Julius Caesar: "The son of a dairy farmworker, Dean was raised to appreciate the rich language of the Bible and Shakespeare. 'My parents always read us stories,' he explained. 'Finding the true meaning of Shakespeare under all those flowery words was always a mind twister for me.' Dean was fond of quoting inspirational lines from Shakespeare in the 49ers locker room. One of his favorites was, 'Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once'" (p. 369). That is a line that Caesar speaks to Calpurnia.

Season Of The Witch: Enchantment, Terror, And Deliverance In The City Of Love was published in 2012. The copy I read, from the library, was the First Free Press hardcover edition of May 2012.