In keeping with its theatrical theme, the article quotes from Shakespeare several times:
- 'played many parts' is from Jaques’s famous speech on 'the Seven Ages of Man' in As You Like It II.vii. 142: 'And one man in his time plays many parts'
- 'His occupation is gone' is from Othello III.iii.362: 'Othello’s occupation’s gone.'
- comedy drama (why not tragedy-farce, sir, as well?); farcical comedy, comic opera, and burlesque: this imitates Polonius, in Hamlet II.ii.398-400: 'tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral'
- 'your stage-managing actor is a sore destroyer of your author's lines and theories' draws on the phrasing of the First Clown (or Grave-digger) in HamletHamlet (V.i.167): 'your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body'
Last modified 6 April 2022