I hate to break it to you, oh impotent one, but you're not the big bad anymore, you're not even the kind of naughty.

Xander ,'Showtime'


Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.

There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."


Toddson - Mar 05, 2010 10:37:49 am PST #11079 of 28344
Friends don't let friends read "Atlas Shrugged"

Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres was, indeed, a take on King Lear and the movie followed fairly closely.

And in The Goodbye Girl, Richard Dreyfuss is playing Richard III (in a very , um, ODD production).

And there was Ian McKellan's own version of Richard III, done as a fascist state.

Peter Brook's Midsummer Night's Dream

I saw it ... and have fond memories of it.


Dana - Mar 05, 2010 10:39:07 am PST #11080 of 28344
I'm terrifically busy with my ennui.

Natalie Merchant's "Ophelia"? That's more a metaphor, though.


Sue - Mar 05, 2010 10:40:46 am PST #11081 of 28344
hip deep in pie

Do you mean Keats? [link]


DavidS - Mar 05, 2010 10:42:53 am PST #11082 of 28344
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."

Do you mean Keats? [link]

I did. (and corrected upthread) This is what I get for studying the Romantic poets in one anthology. They all jumble together. Though Coleridge's essay on Lear is also famous.


DavidS - Mar 05, 2010 10:44:43 am PST #11083 of 28344
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."

Any more short stories?

I'm thinking of John Crowley's "The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines" as one example.

Again, not allusions or references to, but works centrally concerned with Shakespeare's works or life or backstage at theatrical productions or reworking the text.


Polter-Cow - Mar 05, 2010 10:56:36 am PST #11084 of 28344
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!

Connie Willis has a great short story called "Much Ado About [Censored]." It was collected in this book, and I loved it when I was a teenager. It's about a high school in the future trying to put on Hamlet but having to strike out everything that someone has filed a complaint about. They can't even get past the first line, "Who's there?" because it's offensive to the National Council Against Contractions or something like that. And the murder of Polonius has a citation from the Drapery Defamation League or something because of its negative portrayal of curtains: "Curtains don't kill people. People kill people."


DavidS - Mar 05, 2010 10:58:57 am PST #11085 of 28344
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."

I wonder if SF and Fantasy writers are more likely to consider Shakespeare their playground?

There's also Poul Anderson's A Midsummer Tempest.


brenda m - Mar 05, 2010 11:26:19 am PST #11086 of 28344
If you're going through hell/keep on going/don't slow down/keep your fear from showing/you might be gone/'fore the devil even knows you're there

Sports Night also has a St. Crispin's Day reference, though it's not crucial to the episode. (Just to a really slashy reading.)

Due South also had a whole speech.

They have called this day The Eleventh of March! And whom-so-ever of you gets through this day, unless you are shot in the head or somehow slain… you will stand at tiptoe… when e'er you hear the name again, and you will get excited!…At the name March The Eleventh! We happy few, we few, we band of brothers…our names will be as like…household names. And those who are not here, be they sleeping or… doing something else… They will feel themselves…sort of crappy. Because they are not here to…to join the fight. On this day, the Eleventh of March!!


Strega - Mar 05, 2010 11:30:19 am PST #11087 of 28344

In "The Adventure of the Global Traveler" the third murderer in Macbeth is revealed to be... Moriarty.


Sophia Brooks - Mar 05, 2010 11:43:22 am PST #11088 of 28344
Cats to become a rabbit should gather immediately now here

Isn't Sons of Anarchy basically Hamlet on motorcycles?