Shakespeare References in The Dragons Of Eden

Carl Sagan’s book The Dragons Of Eden contains several references to Shakespeare. Actually, they’re not so much references as directly quoted passages from various plays, that Carl Sagan uses to begin certain chapters. The book’s first chapter is titled “The Cosmic Calendar,” and Carl Sagan begins it with a line from The Tempest: “What seest thou else/In the dark backward and abysm of time?” That is a line that Prospero speaks in the first act. The third chapter, “The Brain And The Chariot,” begins this line from Macbeth: “When shall we three meet again...?” “When shall we three meet again” is the very first line of the play. The sixth chapter, “Tales Of Dim Eden,” begins with a line from King Lear: “Come not between the dragon and his wrath.” It is a line that Lear says to Kent. The next chapter, “Lovers And Madmen,” begins with a bit of A Midsummer Night’s Dream: “Lovers and madmen have such seething brains/Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend/More than cool reason even comprehends./The lunatic, the lover, and the poet/Are of imagination all compact…” Theseus gives that speech in the fifth act. The ninth chapter, “Knowledge Is Our Destiny: Terrestrial And Extraterrestrial Intelligence,” opens with a line from Richard The Third: “The silent hours steal on…” Derby says that in Act V.

The Dragons Of Eden was published in 1977. The First Ballantine Books Edition was published in April 1978.

Shakespeare References in The Right Stuff

The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe’s book about the first American astronauts, contains a couple of Shakespeare references. The first is to The First Part Of King Henry The Fourth. In a section about the training of chimpanzees using electric shocks and banana-flavored pellets, Tom Wolfe writes, “A life of avoiding the blue bolts and gratefully accepting the attaboys and pellets had become the better part of valor” (p. 165). That of course is a reference to Falstaff’s famous line, “The better part of valor is discretion, in the which better part I have saved my life.” The second is a reference to Hamlet. Wolfe writes, “The only rub – the only rub, to Johnson’s way of thinking – is that he wants the Life reporter, Wainwright, to get out of the house, because his presence will antagonize the rest of the print reporters who can’t get in, and they will not think kindly of the Vice-President” (p. 261). William Shakespeare was not the first person to use the word rub in this way, but in general when someone uses the word like that, he or she is probably thinking of Hamlet’s famous soliloquy.

The Right Stuff was published in 1979. The copy I read is a fourth printing of the Bantam edition, from November 1981.