That's Shakespeare? Who Knew...

Happy Monday, everyone!

Let's talk about Shakespeare some more. (que sorpresa!)  More accurately, let's talk about all the things in this world that are references to Shakespeare that maybe you didn't know about!  Yes, these are the things that keep me up at night; fretting over whether or not people are fully comprehending all the of references that are out there.  They are like movie Easter Eggs, but in our society!

So let's start with 3 things that come from Shakespeare that you (possibly) didn't know:

The Sound and the Fury

Do you remember that book you had to read in high school/college by William Faulkner?  Well, he got the title from the play, Macbeth.  It's one of the most devastatingly beautiful and existential soliloquies there is, in my humble opinion.  Macbeth has just learned that his wife has killed herself, and he says,

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

Macbeth Act V, scene V, 19–28 

Sometimes when I read it, I think it's the most loving thing he could have said - such sadness at the state of the world, the emptiness of it all.  Anyway, Faulkner took it and ran with it.  And I don't know if you noticed, but his book has that same eerie tone, of a life devoid of meaning and purpose.

"What Dreams May Come" 

This was a lovely Robin William movie based off a novel of the same name by Richard Matheson.  After dying in a car crash a man searches the afterlife for his wife.  The title is derived from Hamlet's famous "To be or not to be" speech on death and what comes after.  Below is the segment:

To die, to sleep,

To sleep, perchance to Dream; Aye, there's the rub,

For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, (hey, that part's my blog name!)

Must give us pause. There's the respect

That makes Calamity of so long life:

Hamlet, Act III, Scene i, 1757-62

Sting's Album, "Nothing Like the Sun"

Sting is actually quite the Shakespeare fan, and the inspiration came to him when a drunk man said to him "How beautiful is the moon?" and he replied, "Nothing like the sun."  It comes from my favorite sonnet, number 130.

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
     And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
     As any she belied with false compare.

Beautiful, right?  See, what he's doing here is taking a popular genre of poetry in his day (a blason) that enlisted the practice of praising a woman by singling out different parts of her body and pairing them with metaphors for compare.  e.g. your eyes are like two stars, your hair is like rows of golden wheat, etc.  But he's turning it on its head and saying pah! I am better than all the poets and all the writers in all the world.

Perhaps I'm paraphrasing.

Anywhoo, stay tuned for more things you didn't know were originally Shakespeare's.  Thanks, public domain!