Shakespeare References in Have Space Suit – Will Travel

Robert A. Heinlein’s Have Space Suit – Will Travel contains several Shakespeare references. The first is to Macbeth. In this section, one of the characters strings together several well-known passages about sleep, including “Sleep, that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care” (p. 61). That line is spoken by Macbeth after the murder of Duncan. The next reference is also to Macbeth, but King Lear is also mentioned. Kip quotes, “Lay on, Macduff, and curs’d be him who first cries, ‘Hold, enough!’” (p. 96). Peewee then says, “King Lear,” and Kip corrects her: “Macbeth. Want to bet?” The next reference is to Hamlet. Kip quotes, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be” (p. 193). This time Peewee accurately identifies the line. She says: “Polonius. He was a stupid old bore.” There is then another Macbeth reference. When Kip learns that a world was destroyed as soon as judgment was passed, a line from Macbeth occurs to him. Heinlein writes, “I gulped and heard an echo in my mind: ‘– ‘twere well it were done quickly’” (p. 223). That line is spoken by Macbeth in the Act I Scene vii.

There are also a couple of references to The Tempest. The alien race is essentially putting humanity on trial, saying, in part, that humans have no art. In response Kip says: “Have you read our poetry? ‘Our revels now are ended: these our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits, and are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself. . . itself – yea – all which it. . . inherit – shall dissolve’” (pages 235-236). Heinlein continues: “I broke down. I heard Peewee sobbing beside me. I don’t know why I picked that one – but they say the subconscious mind never does things ‘accidentally.’ I guess it had to be that one” (p. 236). Soon after that, Heinlein writes: “I looked around at the hall. – the cloud-capped towers. . . the great globe itself – ‘Just this!’ I said savagely” (p. 237). The final reference is to The Merchant Of Venice. A character says, “Slow down; you won’t send anybody, unless I get my pound of flesh” (p. 248).

Have Space Suit – Will Travel was published in 1958. The First Ballentine Books Edition was published in December 1977. The copy I read was the fourth printing, from October 1978.

Shakespeare References in Metropolitan Life

Metropolitan Life, written by Fran Lebowitz, contains several Shakespeare references. The first is a play on As You Like It, with Lebowitz writing, “I jot down an idea I have for an all-black version of a Shakespearean comedy to be called As You Likes It” (pages 14-15). The next is a reference to Shakespeare himself, and comes in a playful sort of questionnaire: “If I were stranded alone on a desert island and could have only one book I would want… a. The Bible. b. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. c. The Wind In The Willows. d. Truman Capote’s address book” (p. 30). Obviously, the only choice there is B. That same questionnaire contains a reference to Romeo And Juliet: “As far as I am concerned, a rose by any other name is… a. Still the same. b. A flower c. A color. d. A scent. e. A Kennedy” (p. 31). Of course, it should be “ a rose by any other word.” This book also contains a reference to The Merchant Of Venice. Lebowitz writes: “Tricks have feelings too, as they will be the first to tell you. If you prick them they do indeed bleed – usually your good vodka” (pages 95-96). There she is playing on a line from Shylock’s famous speech from the first scene of Act III, “If you prick us, do we not bleed?”

In a chapter titled “Why I Love Sleep,” Fran Lebowitz talks about some historical figures who slept, one of whom is William Shakespeare. Lebowitz writes: “Known as the Bard among his colleagues in the word game, Shakespeare was undoubtedly one of literature’s more inspired and prolific sleepers. Proof of this exists in the form of a bed found in the house he occupied in Stratford-upon-Avon. Further references to sleeping have been discovered in his work, and although there is some question as to whether he actually did all his own sleeping (scholarly debate currently centers around the possibility that some of it was done by Sir Francis Bacon), we are nevertheless safe in assuming that William Shakespeare was indeed a sleeper of note” (pages 125-126). In that passage, she jokes about those morons who think someone else wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare. There is another reference to Shakespeare: “As an aficionado of literature it might interest you to know that, in all of Shakespeare, the word assertive appears not a single time” (p. 181). The book’s final Shakespeare reference is to Hamlet, and it comes in a chapter title: “OR NOT CB: THAT IS THE ANSWER” (p. 198).

Metropolitan Life was published in 1978. The copy I read was the paperback edition.

Shakespeare Study: Revisiting A Few Plays

I’m trying to read the Shakespeare books that I already own before purchasing more. But of course I’m always finding interesting books and wishing to possess them. Lately, I’ve been revisiting certain plays, reading different editions.

The Tempest by William Shakespeare – This time around I read the edition from the series titled A Case Study In Critical Controversy, which digs into the controversies surrounding the play, mainly regarding colonialism. The book was edited by Gerald Graff and James Phelan and contains several essays regarding the play, aimed at college students. The book begins with some pages on Shakespeare’s life and works, including mention of those ridiculous creatures who believe someone other than Shakespeare wrote the works attributed to him. The text of the play itself is from David Bevington’s edition of The Complete Works Of Shakespeare, published in 1973. At the beginning of the chapter titled “Sources And Contexts,” the editors write, regarding Michel de Montaigne’s essay “Of The Cannibals”: “Montaigne’s argument that the natural state in which cannibals live is superior in virtue and innocence to the condition of civilization is echoed in Gonzalo’s speech on the innocence of nature in The Tempest, 2.1 Montaigne’s meditation on cannibals may have also suggested the name ‘Caliban’ to Shakespeare” (p. 116). Ronald Takaki, in a piece published in 1993, writes: “The Tempest, the London audience knew, was not about Ireland but about the New World, for the reference to the ‘Bermoothes’ (Bermuda) revealed the location of the island. What was happening onstage was a metaphor for English expansion into America. The play’s title was inspired by a recent incident: caught in a violent storm in 1609, the Sea Adventure had been separated from a fleet of ships bound for Virginia and had run aground in the Bermudas” (p. 146). Later in that same piece, Takaki writes, “The theatergoers saw Caliban’s ‘sty’ located emblematically at the back of the stage, behind Prospero’s ‘study,’ signifying a hierarchy of white over dark and cerebral over carnal” (p. 156). Frank Kermode writes, in a piece published in 1963: “The Tempest has much spectacle and music; it has also a more general resemblance to the masque. Prospero is like a masque-presenter, and the castaways wander helpless in an enchanted scene under his spell, until he chooses to release them, drawing back a curtain to display a symbol of aristocratic concord, Ferdinand and Miranda at chess” (p. 177). Reuben A. Brower, in a piece published in 1951, writes: “References to similar wakings and sleepings, to dreams and dreamlike states, abound from here to the end of the play, where the sailors are ‘brought moping… even in a dream,’ and the grand awakening of all the characters is completed. But up to that point confusion between waking and sleep is the rule, being awake is never far from sleep or dream. In The Tempest sleep is always imminent, and more than once action ends in sleep or trance” (p. 187). Deborah Willis, in a piece published in 1989, writes, regarding Antonio: “The play does not fully endorse Prospero’s construction of himself as Antonio’s absolute opposite, however. As Brown notes in passing, Prospero’s language in his narration of the past also makes visible his own abdication of authority. If Antonio possesses an ‘evil nature,’ is trust the appropriate strategy of the ‘good parent’? Such trust, we are told, ‘Awak’d’ Antonio’s evil and ‘did beget’ his falsehood. By representing their relation in terms that suggest cause and effect, Prospero’s own metaphors hint at a greater responsibility than he ever acknowledges openly. His actions later in the play do indicate he has assumed some responsibility, however” (pages 262-263). Meredith Anne Skura, in a piece published in 1989, writes: “Moreover, Caliban was not alone when Prospero arrived. Ariel either came to the island with Sycorax or was already living on the island – its true reigning lord – when Sycorax arrived and promptly enslaved him, thus herself becoming the first colonialist, the one who established the habits of dominance and erasure before Prospero ever set foot on the island” (p. 297). In a footnote later in that same piece, Meredith Anne Skura writes, “Might the brothers’ definition by opposition perhaps have influenced Shakespeare’s choice of names: Prospero and Antonio?” (p. 318). Ann Thompson, in a piece published in 1991, writes, “It is notable that the acknowledged, if evil, power of Sycorax is effectively undermined by the bestial stupidity of her son, rather as the power of Tamora is defused in Titus Andronicus and that of the Queen in Cymbeline” (p. 341). This book was published in 2000.

The Tragedy Of Hamlet, Prince Of Denmark by William Shakespeare – This time I chose The New Folger Library edition, edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Westine. This book contains information on Shakespeare’s life and the theatre, as well as an introduction to the text. In in that introduction, the editors write “Yet the present edition is unique in marking all passages that are found only in the Second Quarto and all words and passages found only in the Folio. Thus it becomes possible for a reader to use this book to discover the major and even many of the minor differences between the Second Quarto and First Folio versions of Hamlet. This edition ignores the First Quarto version because the First Quarto is so widely different from the Second Quarto and the Folio” (p. xlix). The edition is based largely on the Q2. Explanatory notes are included on the pages facing the text. Regarding Hamlet’s line “Get thee to a nunnery,” the note reads that “nunnery” “was sometimes used mockingly to refer to a brothel” (p. 130). Regarding “convocation of politic worms,” the note reads, “perhaps an allusion to the Diet of Worms, a convocation (council)) summoned at the city of Worms by the holy Roman emperor in 1521” (p. 196). Regarding the flower symbolism in the Ophelia scene, the notes read: “fennel symbolized flattery and deceit,” rue was a “symbol of sorrow or repentance,” daisy was a “symbol of dissembling” and violets were a “symbol of faithfulness” (p. 216). Regarding the way in which Hamlet ends up with Laertes’ weapon, the note reads: “This stage direction, in Q1, reads ‘They catch one anothers’ rapiers,’ which suggests that Hamlet forces the exchange through a contemporary method of disarm called the ‘left-hand seizure” (p. 278). Textual notes are at the end of the play, rather than placed as footnotes. The book also contains a piece by Michael Neill. Neill writes, “The surprising thing about Shakespeare’s Hamlet is that it barely glances at the ethical argument raised by a hero’s taking justice into his own hands – an argument central to The Spanish Tragedy” (p. 311). And then: “Turning away from the framework of ethical debate, Shakespeare uses Saxo’s story of Hamlet’s pretended madness and delayed revenge to explore the brutal facts about survival in an authoritarian state. Here too the play could speak to Elizabethan experience, for we should not forget that the glorified monarchy of Queen Elizabeth I was sustained by a vigorous network of spies and informers” (pages 311-312). Regarding Polonius, Neill writes, “Polonius is the perfect inhabitant of this court: busy policing his children’s sexuality, he has no scruple about prostituting his daughter in the interests of state security, for beneath his air of senile wordiness and fatherly anxiousness lies an ingrained cynicism that allows him both to spy on his son’s imagined ‘drabbing’ in Paris and to ‘loose’ his daughter as a sexual decoy to entrap the Prince” (p. 313). Neill also writes: “The play is full of such unfinished, untold, or perhaps even untellable tales, from Barnardo’s interrupted story of the Ghost’s first appearance to the Player’s unfinished rendition of ‘Aeneas’ tale to Dido’ and the violently curtailed performance of The Murder Of Gonzago. In the opening scene the Ghost itself is cut off, before it can speak, by the crowing of a cock; and when it returns and speaks to Hamlet, it speaks first about a story it cannot tell” (p. 321). This book was published in 1992.

Shakespeare: Hamlet edited by John Jump – This book is a volume in the Casebook Series, containing a selection of critical essays, focusing on pieces that were originally published between 1949 and 1964, presented in chronological order. But first, to get readers up to speed, there is a section of earlier criticism, spanning the time from 1710 to 1945, just brief excerpts. In one of those early pieces, H. A. Taine writes: “What his imagination robs him of, is the coolness and strength to go quietly and with premeditation to plunge a sword into a breast. He can only do the thing on a sudden suggestion; he must have a moment of enthusiasm; he must think the king is behind the arras, or else, seeing that he himself is poisoned, he must find his victim under his foil’s point. He is not master of his acts; occasion dictates them; he cannot plan a murder, but must improvise it” (p. 34). Wolfgang H. Clemen, in a piece from 1951, writes: “Hamlet’s father describes in that passage how the poison invades the body during sleep and how the healthy organism is destroyed from within, not having a chance to defend itself against attack. But now this becomes the leitmotif of the imagery: the individual occurrence is expanded into a symbol for the central problem of the play. The corruption of land and people throughout Denmark is understood as an imperceptible and irresistible process of poisoning” (p. 70). D.G James, in a piece also from 1951, writes, regarding the scene where Hamlet chooses not to kill Claudius while the man is at prayer: “We are told that in explaining why he does not there kill the King, Hamlet was sincere; it was a belief of the time. But it was certainly not universal. Claudius at least could have told him it was nonsense; Claudius has just made clear to us what was necessary if he, Claudius, was to win heaven. And could a Hamlet who half his time believed neither in heaven nor hell, sincerely and with a whole mind say these things? He leaves Claudius, and goes off to rage at his mother” (p. 83). In a piece from 1952, Maynard Mack writes, regarding Hamlet’s return, after an absence from the stage: “The point is not that Hamlet has suddenly become religious; he has been religious all through the play. The point is that he has now learned, and accepted, the boundaries in which human action, human judgment, are enclosed” (p. 104). In a piece from 1963, Patrick Cruttwell writes: “What really catches him on the raw about this is neither its incestuousness (though that certainly counts for more than the modern reader is likely to allow), nor the fact that it is with a man whom he detests, but the fact that it, and its hastiness, prove Gertrude’s sexuality to be rampantly alive. When he says to her: ‘You cannot call it love, for at your age The hey-day in the blood is tame, it’s humble…’ (III iv 68), he is saying what he desperately wishes were true, but knows is not true” (pages 190-191). This book was first published in 1968. The copy I read is the 14th Reprint, from 1990.

Hamlet On The Couch: What Shakespeare Taught Freud by James E. Groves – This book follows the story of the play, focusing mainly on character rather than plot, to gain an understanding of both the play and Freud. In the first chapter, on identity, Groves writes: “Especially key to survival is accepting paradox and bearing uncertainty, which depends on self deception. And that is what in fact Hamlet is doing when we first meet him – fooling himself” (p. 3). Regarding Freud, Groves writes: “When he read and reread Hamlet, it gave him a mental laboratory for his studies of human nature. But more, it offered him a pre-existing plot line about mental causation already three centuries old, a foundation concept, taken for granted by the audience he hoped to persuade: The clash of contending forces in the dynamic unconscious explains much of the self defeating inconsistency we see in human behavior” (p. 9). Regarding the “What a piece of work is a man” speech, Groves writes, “But if he’s deceiving Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, it’s to test them by being utterly truthful: He seems both to hate the world and his life in it and to love it and relish living” (p. 15). About how only certain characters see the Ghost, Groves writes, “One belief about spirits in Tudor England was that the ghost of the murdered person might return to loved ones to accuse the murderer or warn the next victim, in this case Hamlet, along with the soldiers to fetch him” (p. 43). Regarding the question of why Claudius doesn’t react to the dumb show enactment of the murder, Groves writes: “But Dover Wilson doesn’t think Claudius overmasters his reaction to the depicted murder; he thinks Claudius doesn’t even see it. He ties the king’s non-reaction at the Dumb Show to Polonius’s theory about ‘mad love.’ It pleases the vanity of the old counselor to think his daughter is the reason for the madness of a prince. So during the Dumb Show, Polonius has engaged Claudius in conversation over the ‘country matters’ mentioned by Hamlet, and the King doesn’t actually see his crime pantomimed onstage. And it is an interpretation that’s used in some productions and seems to work” (p. 53). Also about Polonius, Groves writes: “Polonius is an amateur psychoanalyst, and as the play progresses, he spends more and more of his time pursuing the source of Hamlet’s ‘ecstasy.’ It eventually costs him his life” (p. 54). About the soliloquies, Groves writes: “The soliloquies exemplify the quest for self knowledge in the Renaissance. There was a revival of interest in classical ethics and a fashionable push for noble conduct. Recipes for moral improvement were the self help literature of the day, and under the baleful glare of the Puritans even poetry needed justification” (p. 105). Regarding Hamlet thinking it might be Claudius behind the arras, Groves writes: “Hamlet has just left Claudius at prayer, rationally he must know the King is not the lump behind the arras. But when Hamlet steps into his mother’s bedroom, he enters the unconscious, and there time is out of joint, past is prologue, and space obeys the laws not of physics but of wish and fear: Hamlet’s in a nightmare. He hopes it’s Claudius, and he fears it” (p. 150). Regarding Freud’s thoughts on why Shakespeare wrote the play, Groves writes: “Freud thought oedipal motifs in Hamlet reflected the playwright’s relationship with his son as well. The play follows by 4 years the death of Hamnet Shakespeare (1585-1596). Noting the identity of names, Freud felt there would be guilt in the father over the normal oedipal rivalry, which would need to be worked through after the son’s death. Freud suggests the play was what psychoanalysis would come to call grief work. It’s work to process guilt toward the dead” (p. 190). And about Hamlet’s procrastination, Groves writes: “Early on they hear the Ghost characterize murder as ‘most foul, as in the best it is.’ But they don’t consciously register the phrase ‘as in the best it is,’ to mean murder, even for the best reason, is still a sin. That realization develops gradually, so Hamlet evolves into a morality play. This is the central reason for Hamlet’s procrastination: Deep in his heart he knows revenge is a sin” (p. 202). This book was published in 2018.

The Tragedy Of King Lear by William Shakespeare – King Lear is my favorite of Shakespeare’s plays, and I tend to revisit it somewhat frequently. This time I read The Pelican Shakespeare edition, edited by Alfred Harbage. I had already read a copy of the revised edition of this book published in 1970 (I included some notes from it in a blog post on April 7, 2020). This time I read the original, which was first published in 1958. The copy I read was a reprint from 1966. It contains an introduction to the play, as well as a short section about Shakespeare and his works. This edition closely follows the First Folio version, and there is an appendix on the Quarto text, listing differences from the Folio text. Notes on specific words and lines from the play are presented at the bottom of each page. A footnote regarding Gloucester’s line to Kent about Edmund “He hath been out nine years, and away he shall again” reads: “out away (for training, or in military service)” (p. 34). A footnote regarding Albany’s line “‘Tis she is subcontracted to this lord” reads: “subcontracted i.e. engaged, though previously married (sarcastic play on ‘precontracted,’ a legal term applied to one facing an impediment to marriage because previously engaged to another)” (p. 160).

The Tragedy Of King Lear by William Shakespeare – While I was at a used book store in Massachusetts recently, a friend spotted small red editions of three Shakespeare plays. I should have purchased all three, but bought just one, King Lear. It is from The Temple Shakespeare series. The book begins with Charles Lamb’s thoughts on the play, and contains a preface about the different editions and the sources of the plot. All notes on the text are contained at the end of the book, along with a glossary, rather than at the bottom of each page. This edition uses the lines “Although the last, not least” (p. 5) and “Reverse thy doom” (p. 8), both being readings from the Quarto, instead of the Folio, but is a mix of both the Quarto and Folio. There is a note at the beginning of the book which indicates that “the text here used is that of the ‘Cambridge’ edition.” This volume was originally published in October 1895. The copy I read is the Seventh Edition, from April 1901.