Friday, May 17, 2024

Shakespeare References in The Crying Of Lot 49

Shakespeare references pop up in nearly every book I read. Thomas Pynchon's novel The Crying Of Lot 49 contains a few. The first is to Henry The Fifth, and it comes in a song by one of the characters: "As again we set hopeful to sea;/Once more unto the breach, for those boys on the beach" (p. 18). The reference is the Henry V's speech in which he says, "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,/Or close up the wall with our English dead." Then Pynchon mentions Shakespeare himself: "It isn't literature, it doesn't mean anything. Wharfinger was no Shakespeare" (p. 54). On that same page, Shakespeare is mentioned again in dialogue: "Who was Shakespeare. It was a long time ago." There is another mention of Shakespeare later in the book: "'The historical Shakespeare,' growled one of the grad students through a full beard, uncapping another bottle. 'The historical Marx. The historical Jesus'"' (p. 113).

The Crying Of Lot 49 was published in 1966. The copy I read was from the 17th printing, March 1980.

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