Shakespeare References in Remarkable Changes

Seriously, nearly book I read seems to have at least one reference to Shakespeare. I just finished reading Remarkable Changes: Turning Life's Challenges Into Opportunities by Jane Seymour, with Pamela Patrick Novotny. And Jane Seymour mentions Shakespeare twice. The first time she is talking about how her role in Live And Let Die led to a lot of offers, but all basically the same type of role. She writes: "They all led to the same kind of movie, which involved a very glamorous woman running three paces behind a man with a gun - not what I wanted to do. I wanted to do the classics, Ibsen and Shakespeare" (p. 26). The second time she is talking about her friend Sherry Jason. She writes: "Sherry, her husband, and their instructors now work with children from five to eighteen years old, giving classes in writing, acting, stage arts, jazz, ballet, Shakespeare, and photographic and visual arts" (p. 165).

Remarkable Changes: Turning Life's Challenges Into Opportunities was published 2003, and contains a preface by Christopher Reeve.

Shakespeare Reference in The Soloist

It seems that everything I've been reading this year - with the exceptions of the old Dungeons And Dragons novels I returned to for fun - has included some reference to Shakespeare. I just finished reading Mark Salzman's novel The Soloist, and it contains one Shakespeare reference. Salzman writes, "Casals often said that he felt that Bach was the Shakespeare and Rembrandt of music rolled into one, and that Bach's music expressed every nuance of the human experience" (p. 60).

Shakespeare References in The Cavalier Case

Shakespeare references continue to pop up in nearly everything I read. Antonia Fraser’s mystery novel The Cavalier Case contains several Shakespeare references. The first is a Hamlet reference: “However, given that the ghost of Decimus was due to pop up at the siege of Lackland Court, perhaps it was just as well Olivia, unlike Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, had no new husband at her side” (p. 99). There are a few more Hamlet references in this novel. Fraser writes, “to the extent that Jemima thought she definitely protested too much” (p. 105) a reference to Gertrude’s line, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” And there is a reference to the famous bit about Yorick: “Lady Manfred’s distress – it later turned out that the skull had been the first object she disinterred – was the more understandable. ‘Alas poor Yorick,’ went on the authoritative voice, ‘ and all that. I nearly spouted the whole speech, I can tell you’” (p. 165). And it’s possible that Fraser is referring to the play when she writes, “Even if he had been ‘horrified’ – the word heard by Jemima behind her own kind of plastic arras on the tennis court” (p. 228).

There are also references to The Tragedy Of Richard The Third. Fraser writes: “It might be a rather strange method of wooing – the image of Richard III seducing Lady Anne over her husband’s bier came to her – ‘was ever woman in this humor woo’d?’ – since she had seen the play at the Barbican the night before with Cass, with its merry opening references to Mistress Shore’s ‘cherry lip, bonny eye and passing pleasing tongue.’ But who was to say it was an effective one? ‘Was ever woman in this humor won?’ the crookback future king, as played by Anton Lesser, had concluded” (p. 118). And then a little later Fraser writes: “Had she herself not been a perfectly willing party to it all – seduction of the fittest, as you might say? (Richard III came to mind again: ‘Was ever woman in this humor won’)” (p. 126).

But the play most often referred to in this novel is The Tragedy Of Macbeth. Fraser writes: “Otherwise he praised the house lavishly – ‘What a perfectly delightful situation you’ve got here’ and ‘Good to get all this fresh country air after Westminster’ – in terms which irresistibly reminded her of Duncan arriving chez the Macbeths: ‘This castle hath a pleasant seat.’ Duncan too had praised the good fresh (Scottish) air: Jemima trusted the Home Secretary’s fate at Lady Manfred’s hands would be kinder” (p. 161). Fraser then writes: “It was not even evoked by the prospect of her mission: for Jemima, having taken the decision to carry it out, did not allow herself at this point to think about what would happen if she failed (any more than she intended to digest at this point Alix’s astonishing revelation – was she implying that Dan would marry her? Ah well, as Macbeth said, there would be a time for such a word…)” (p. 220). Most of the Macbeth references are at the end of the novel. Fraser writes: “Said she did it all for him, to save his family heritage. A sort of Lady Macbeth who didn’t even let Macbeth know what was going on” (p. 226). And then: “Alix, the loyal if occasionally neglected mistress, was certainly no Lady Macbeth” (p. 227). And: “So perhaps after all Lady Macbeth was not the right analogy” (p. 229). And finally: “And Zena in the same bleak voice quoted Macbeth: ‘We are so deep in blood imbued –’ She added: ‘I believe that happens to people. They don’t know when to stop’” (p. 235).

There is also a reference to Shakespeare: “The transsexual thing is so important in the seventeenth century – how on earth can we understand Shakespeare by just going on about rent boys” (p. 204).

The Cavalier Case was published in 1991.

Shakespeare Reference on Beer Packaging

Recently I was at the beverage store, picking up a specific drink for a party, when a nearby four-pack of beer caught my eye.  It was that famous picture of William Shakespeare that got my attention, and then once I saw it I couldn't very well leave the store without purchasing that beer, Samuel Smith's Winter Ale. I'm not one to believe in signs or anything, but it did cross my mind that perhaps the picture of the world's best writer was a signal that this was the world's best beer. Ordinarily I would not even consider spending $12.99 for four bottles of beer, but my love for Shakespeare and my curiosity overrode my need to save money.

It is, it turns out, a damn good beer. But it's the packaging I want to focus on here. In addition to the picture of Shakespeare, it bears a quotation from The Two Gentlemen Of Verona: "Blessing of your heart you brew good ale." This is from Act III Scene i, and the full line is:"And thereof comes the proverb, 'Blessing of your heart, you brew good ale.'"

Shakespeare Reference in The Uncle From Rome

It seems that nearly everything I read these days contains at least one Shakespeare reference. I just finished reading a novel titled The Uncle From Rome, written by Joseph Caldwell, and approximately sixty pages from the end found this reference to Shakespeare: "They seemed more stunned than nervous, and looking at them now, Michael wondered if some exhortation might help, some show of encouragement, of confidence. The speech Shakespeare wrote Henry V at the battle of Agincourt suggested itself, but Michael felt instinctively that they were all best left alone" (p. 229).

Shakespeare Reference in Lust For Life

Irving Stone’s biographical novel about Vincent Van Gogh, Lust For Life, contains a Shakespeare reference. Stone writes, “Theo sent him a one-volume edition of Shakespeare; he read ‘Richard II,’ ‘Henry IV,’ and ‘Henry V,’ projecting his mind to other days and other places” (p. 446).

Lust For Life was originally published in 1934. The edition I read was published in 1984.

Shakespeare References in Reading Lolita In Tehran

Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita In Tehran: A Memoir In Books contains a few Shakespeare references. The first two are to Hamlet. Nafisi writes: “The only one among us who claimed she had never experienced such fear was Nassrin. ‘I was always afraid of having to lie. You know what they say: to thine own self be true and all that. I believe in that sort of thing,’ she said with a shrug” (p. 46). That, of course, is a reference to Polonius’ advice to Laertes in the first act of the play. And then a little later Nafisi writes: “‘The problem with the censors is that they are not malleable.’ We all looked at Yassi. She shrugged as if to say she couldn’t help it, the word appealed to her. ‘Do you remember how on TV they cut Ophelia from the Russian version of Hamlet?’” (p. 50). She continues: “‘That would make a good title for a paper,’ I said. ‘Mourning Ophelia’” (p. 50).

The others are references to Shakespeare himself. Nafisi writes: “These are my memories of Norman: red earth and fireflies, singing and demonstrating on the Oval, reading Melville, Poe, Lenin and Mao Tse Tung, reading Ovid and Shakespeare on warm spring mornings with a favorite professor, of conservative political leaning, and accompanying another in the afternoons, singing revolutionary songs” (pages 83-84). Then: “He taught drama and film – Greek theater, Shakespeare, Ibsen and Stoppard, as well as Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers” (p. 139). And then just a bit later she writes, “Heated debates had ensued in that packed meeting as drama students demanded that Aeschylus, Shakespeare and Racine be replaced with Brecht and Gorky, as well as some Marx and Engels – revolutionary theory was more important than plays” (p. 139).

Nafisi also at one point mentions the new Globe in London: “I acted as if we were talking about a normal trip, a routine visit to her older sister in London – it’s far too wet at this time of year; do ask them to take you to the Globe” (p. 322).

Reading Lolita In Tehran: A Memoir In Books was published in 2003.