Shakespeare References in Travels With My Aunt

Graham Greene's Travels With My Aunt contains several Shakespeare references. Actually, before the novel even begins, there is a Shakespeare reference on the first page, the page with quoted passages from reviews: "It is as if Shakespeare, after the tragedies, had chosen to write not 'The Tempest' but 'Charley's Aunt.'" That is from Time. Then, in the novel itself, the first reference is to Hamlet. Greene writes: "I remember once when I was in Tunis a travelling company was there who were playing Hamlet in Arabic. Someone saw to it that in the Interlude the Player King was really killed - or rather not quite killed but severely damaged in the right ear - by molten lead. And who do you suppose the police at once suspected? Not the man who poured the lead in, although he must have been aware that the ladle wasn't empty and was hot to the touch. Oh no, they knew Shakespeare's play too well for that, and so they arrested Hamlet's uncle" (p. 58). The next reference is also to Hamlet. Greene writes: "What did the truth matter? All characters once dead, if they continue to exist in memory at all, tend to become fictions. Hamlet is no less real now than Winston Churchill, and Jo Pulling no less historical than Don Quixote" (p. 67). After that, there is a reference to The Merchant Of Venice: "You were condemned if you chose the wrong one, like those poor men in The Merchant of Venice" (p. 99). The novel also contains a reference to Macbeth: "I nearly became a Roman Catholic once. Because of the Kennedys. But then when two of them got shot - I mean I'm superstitious. Was Macbeth a Catholic?" (p. 112). And then there is a reference to As You Like It, and to Shakespeare himself: "I can't think why you persist in calling it a theatre. 'All the world's a stage,' of course, but a metaphor as general as that loses all its meaning. Only a second-rate actor could have written such a line out of pride in his second-rate calling. There were occasions when Shakespeare was a very bad writer indeed. You can see how often in books of quotations" (p. 121). An insane thing for someone to think, of course, but those are the thoughts of one character. And Greene goes on to write: "I was a little shocked by her unexpected attack on Shakespeare. Perhaps it was because he wrote verse dramas like Mario" (p. 121). This book was published in 1969. The Bantam edition was published in 1971.