Shakespeare Reference in Dude, Where’s My Country?

After re-reading Stupid White Men, it seemed right to revisit Dude, Where’s My Country?, Michael Moore’s next book. And this one too contains a Shakespeare reference. It comes in a chapter title. The third chapter is titled “Oil’s Well That Ends Well” (p. 85), a play on Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well. That chapter title is mentioned again in the “Notes and Sources” section toward the end of the book, on p. 229. Dude, Where’s My Country? was published in 2003. My copy is from the First Printing, October 2003.

Shakespeare References in Stupid White Men

I’ve been re-reading some of my old books, and it seemed a good time to revisit Stupid White Men. There are two Shakespeare references in the book. Well, really, there is just one, for the second one comes in the “Notes And Sources” section. Moore writes: “And who gives a rat’s ass if, out of the seventy English Literature programs at seventy major American universities, only twenty-three now require English majors to take a course in Shakespeare? Can somebody please explain to me what Shakespeare and English have to do with each other? What good are some moldy old plays going to be in the business world, anyway?” (p.92). The other reference, as I mentioned, comes in the “Notes And Sources” section for Chapter 5, specifically a title of a New York Times article. That article is “Much Ado – Yawn – About Great Books” by Emily Eakon, the title obviously a play on Much Ado About Nothing.

Stupid White Men was published in 2001. My copy is a First Edition.

Shakespeare References in Death, Bones, And Stately Homes

Death, Bones, And Stately Homes, a mystery written by Valerie S. Malmont, contains a couple of Shakespeare references. The first is to Romeo And Juliet, with Malmont writing: “That left me free to write my feature article about the tragic story of Rodney and Emily. I was determined not to make it the Lickin Creek version of Romeo and Juliet, because Romeo, as I remembered, was not perverted but only horny” (p. 142). The other is to King Lear. One of the characters says to Tori: “I wouldn’t have let you go to jail alone, Tori. I’d have ‘fessed up if it had come to that. ‘I’ll kneel down and ask of thee forgiveness: and we’ll live, and pray, and sing, and tell old tales and laugh at gilded butterflies…’ Am I forgiven?” (pages 203-204). The friend there is quoting King Lear’s lines to Cordelia as they are about to taken away to prison. Malmont has Tori respond: “Of course. I’ll always ‘laugh at gilded butterflies’ with you” (p. 204). Malmont continues: “Who wouldn’t forgive a best friend who could apologize with a quotation from King Lear? Alice-Ann had been an English literature major in college where we first met, and her ability to dredge something appropriate up from her memory for every occasion was truly amazing. The only reason I knew this particular quotation was from King Lear was because she’d used it on me several times before” (p. 204).

Death, Bones, And Stately Homes was published in 2003. The copy I read was the Worldwide Mystery edition from May 2005.

Shakespeare References in Chronicles Volume One

Bob Dylan’s autobiography Chronicles Volume One contains a few Shakespeare references. The first is a mention of Romeo And Juliet: “He wore a tomato-stained apron, had a fleshy, hard-bitten face, bulging cheeks, scars on his face like the marks of claws – thought of himself as a lady’s man – saving his money so he could go to Verona in Italy and visit the tomb of Romeo and Juliet” (p. 13). The next reference is sort of to Shakespeare and Macbeth. Dylan is writing about reading articles from the 1800s on microfilm. In his description of the various things he was reading about, Dylan writes: “There’s a riot in New York where two hundred people are killed outside of the Metropolitan Opera House because an English actor had taken the place of an American one” (p. 85). I assume he is referring to the so-called Shakespeare riot, which took place in 1849 outside the Astor Opera House. Thirty people were killed, not two hundred, but at least another one hundred fifty people were injured. This happened at a performance of Macbeth by the English actor William Charles Macready. The American actor Edwin Forrest was performing the same play nearby. The next reference is to one of Shakespeare’s most famous characters. Dylan writes: “Like Falstaff, I’d been heading from one play into the next, but now fate itself had played a nightmarish trick. I wasn’t Falstaff anymore” (p. 156). John Falstaff is in The First Part Of King Henry The Fourth, The Second Part Of King Henry The Fourth, and The Merry Wives Of Windsor, and is talked about in Henry The Fifth. The book’s final reference is to Shakespeare himself. Dylan writes, “He dressed in black from head to foot and would quote Shakespeare” (p. 261). He is talking about Paul Clayton there.

Chronicles Volume One was published in 2004. It was first published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK in 2004. The copy I read was published by Pocket Books in 2005. An imprint of Simon & Schuster UK.

Shakespeare Reference in Almost Famous

Cameron Crowe’s screenplay for Almost Famous, released as a paperback as a supplement to Sight And Sound, contains a Shakespeare reference. That reference actually comes in a quoted line from Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway To Heaven”: “Immediately, overlapping, the vocal begins: (‘There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold’)” (p. 66). That line is a play on a famous line from The Merchant Of Venice. When the Prince of Morocco chooses the gold casket, he finds a scroll inside, its first line being “All that glisters is not gold.” This paperback was published in 2000.

Shakespeare Reference in Confessions Of A Rock ‘N’ Roll Name-Dropper

Laurie Kaye’s Confessions Of A Rock ‘N’ Roll Name-Dropper: My Life Leading Up To John Lennon’s Last Interview contains one Shakespeare reference. Laurie Kaye writes, “That kooky relationship ended shortly thereafter when my rich-kid Romeo killed it” (p. 114). This book was published in 2023.