Shakespeare in Fiction: Difference between revisions

[[William Shakespeare (Creator)|William Shakespeare]], being the important literary figure that he is, shows up frequently as a fictional character--so frequently, in fact, that a number of standard conventions have developed about how he's portrayed.

* ''[[Hamlet (Theatre)|Hamlet]]'' the play is a reaction to the death of Hamnet Shakespeare (his only son).

* Shakespeare knew some Jews, or a Jew, which is why ''[[The Merchant of Venice (Theatre)|The Merchant of Venice]]'' was [[Fair for Its Day]]. Sometimes the Jew in question is Rodrigo Lopez, who was a physician to Queen Elizabeth until he was convicted of treason.

* ''[[The Tempest (Theatre)|The Tempest]]'' and ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream (Theatre)|A Midsummer Nights Dream]]'' are related somehow--possibly because Puck and Ariel are connected.

* [[Christopher Marlowe (Creator)|Christopher Marlowe]]'s death is significant, or possibly [[Faux Death|faked]].

* Shakespeare's marriage was of at best questionable happiness (because he only left his wife his "second best bed" in his will, and because he spent most of his life in London while she was in Stratford-upon-Avon). His wife gave birth less than nine months after their marriage, so it's often presented as a [[Shotgun Wedding]]. [[Justifying Edit|It's worth mentioning that Shakespeare scholars dispute both these factoids]]: apparently the second-best bed was the bed a couple would typically sleep in (the best was kept for guests - like the "company dinner service") and under the laws of the time, the wife would automatically inherit a large share of the estate. As for the marriage, Shakespeare and his wife had been formally engaged for a number of months before the marriage ceremony and at the time, engaged couples were seen as married in all but name. (This crops up as an important plot point in ''[[Measure for Measure (Theatre)|Measure for Measure]]''.)

* In ''[[The Sandman]]'', he makes a deal with Dream--he's given writing ability, and in return Dream will get two plays from him (which end up being ''[[The Tempest (Theatre)|The Tempest]]'' and ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream (Theatre)|A Midsummer Nights Dream]]''). Hamnet dies after being captivated by the real world version of Titania, and it's implied that this leads to ''[[Hamlet (Theatre)|Hamlet]]''. (And Shakespeare's ability to write a death that made the audience cry). It's hinted that ''The Tempest'' is a bit of vanity on Dream's part; "We are such stuff as dreams are made on," etc. Prospero has a lot in common with Morpheus...

* ''Ink and Steel'' and ''Hell and Earth'' by Elizabeth Bear are urban fantasy novels with Shakespeare and Marlowe as protagonists. They start with Marlowe's (apparent) death, and much is made of the ([[Shown Their Work|very real]]) Marlowe references in ''[[As You Like It (Theatre)|As You Like It]]''. Interestingly, Hamnet's death in these books is ''also'' the Puck's fault--this may be a [[Shout-Out]] to ''[[Sandman]]''.

* ''King of Shadows'' by [[Susan Cooper]] is about a modern boy actor who's sent back in time to play Puck in ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream (Theatre)|A Midsummer Nights Dream]]'' and bonds with Shakespeare. At the end, he realizes that Shakespeare was almost certainly thinking of him when he wrote the part of Ariel in ''The Tempest''.

* [[Oscar Wilde (Creator)|Oscar Wilde]]'s story "The Portrait of Mr. W. H." is about the young man of the sonnets.

* ''The Shakespeare Stealer'', ''Shakespeare's Scribe'', and ''Shakespeare's Spy'', by Gary L. Blackwood, are a trilogy about a boy who is initially hired to transcribe ''[[Hamlet (Theatre)|Hamlet]]'' before it is legally published. The second book revolves around the writing of ''Love's Labour's Won'', which in this version turns out to be a working title for ''~All's Well That Ends Well~''.

* ''[[Arcia Chronicles]]'' feature an [[Expy]] of Shakespeare, though it's not a very favorable portrayal: more like a [[Take That]] for his work on ''[[Richard III (Theatre)|Richard III]]'', since Richard III's expy is one of the good guys in the story.

* In ''[[FoucaultsFoucault's Pendulum]]'', Shakespeare shows up in Belbo's metafictional writing about the Plan, as part of a complex chain of faked authorship. In an inversion of the standard crackpot theory, he writes the books that in reality were written by Francis Bacon. This means he doesn't have time to write his own plays, so [[wikipedia:Edward Kelley|Edward Kelley]] writes them for him.

* [[Isaac Asimov (Creator)|Isaac Asimov]] wrote a very short story called "The Immortal Bard" about a physicist who uses a time machine to bring Shakespeare to the present. He relates this to an English professor at a faculty mixer, who, it turns out, {{spoiler|had Shakespeare in his class on Shakespeare -- and flunked him.}}

* Shakespeare is the main character in ''Nothing Like the Sun'' by Anthony Burgess ([[A Clockwork Orange (Literaturenovel)|yes, that Anthony Burgess]]). Set in [[The Dung Ages|the Dung Ages]] but with a mostly believable plot, it is centred around the Fair Lord and the Dark Lady (following the theories that she was actually black and that the Fair Lord was the Earl of Southampton). Burgess also wrote ''Dead Man in Deptford'', about Christopher Marlowe.

* In ''[[The Neverending Story (Literaturenovel)|The Neverending Story]]'' by [[Michael Ende (Creator)|Michael Ende]], three knights stroll along with Bastian, singing "When That I was and a Little Tiny Boy" (which we know from ''[[Twelfth Night (Theatre)|Twelfth Night]]''), which they learned from a previous human visitor to Fantasia/Fantastica, "name of Shexper, or something of the sort."

* In [[Light and Dark - The Adventures of Dark Yagami (Fanfic)|Light and Dark The Adventures of Dark Yagami]], his name is spelled "[[Rouge Angles of Satin|Shakespeer]]", he speaks in [[Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe]], and he was [[You Fail History Forever|The King of England]]. When threatened, he talks in "Pomes". They are painful.

** Marlowe's death looks like it's important. Shakespeare claims to be Marlowe at a ball where he gets between Lady Viola and her fiancé, so he later ends up thinking that the fiancé had Marlowe killed. It turns out to be a [[Red Herring]]; when Shakespeare shows up at Marlowe's funeral, [[Attending Your Own Funeral|the fiancé's reaction]] inspires the scene with Banquo's ghost in ''[[Macbeth (Theatre)|Macbeth]]''.

** Lady Viola (who dresses as a boy in order to be able to act) is the inspiration for the character of the same name in ''[[Twelfth Night (Theatre)|Twelfth Night]]''. She may also be the beautiful young man of the Sonnets.

** The episode "[[Doctor Who/NS/Recap/S3 E2 The Shakespeare Code|The Shakespeare Code]]" is centered around the first (and only) performance of ''Love's Labours Won''. Among other references, it has a pub named the Elephant that Shakespeare frequents (''[[Twelfth Night (Theatre)|Twelfth Night]]'' has an inn of the same name). It plays Shakespeare as akin to a rock star of the Middle Ages with a genius-level intellect. Martha Jones turns out to be the Dark Lady of the sonnets. They also play with Shakespeare's suspected bisexuality (i.e, he hits on both Martha and the Doctor).

** In the Fourth Doctor episode ''City of Death'', the Doctor is shown reading a manuscript of ''[[Hamlet (Theatre)|Hamlet]]'' (which he hand-wrote for Will, who had sprained his wrist writing sonnets) and claiming that he helped compose the famous 'To be or not to be' speech.

* In the ''[[Black AdderBlackadder]]'' [[Time Travel]] special for the Millennium, ''Blackadder Back And Forth'', Edmund beats up Shakespeare in revenge for 400 years of schoolchildren who have to put up with his plays. And for being indirectly responsible for "[[Kenneth Branagh|Ken Branagh]]'s endless, uncut, four-hour version of ''[[Hamlet (Theatre)|Hamlet]]''".

* He's brought into the present-day in an episode of ''[[Mentors (TV series)|Mentors]]'', where he goes by the alias "Bill Wagstaffe" and tries to write a TV pilot before going back to his own time.

* Shakespeare appears in one version of "[[Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego?]]?", when one of VILE agents steals his original scripts. Renee Santz and you help one of his actors fix the Globe's wall.

* Shakespeare in ''[[Irregular Webcomic]]'' is an office worker who writes ''[[Harry Potter (Literaturenovel)|Harry Potter]]'' [[Self-Insert Fic]] in his spare time. His office mates include Mercutio, a [[Ted Baxter]], and Ophelia, who has a crush on him but doesn't quite get his interests.