The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.0645  Thursday, 8 April 1999.

From:           Moira Russell <
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Date:           Wednesday, 07 Apr 1999 22:37:18 -0700
Subject:        Shakespeare as Character

I have been studying this list's collection of
stories/novels/plays/movies etc. wherein Shakespeare appears, and I
don't think anyone has mentioned two of my favorites:

1) The novella "No Great Magic," by Fritz Leiber, who was himself raised
by a Shakespearean actor and trained as one.  It is part of his series
about time travel called, loosely, the "Change War" stories, and is a
sequel to his acclaimed novel "The Big Time."  It features a
time-traveling group of actors who end up playing "Macbeth" before
Shakespeare and Elizabeth.

2)  The novel "Tam Lin" by Pamela Dean.  This one is a gem.  It is part
of the "Modern Fairy Tale Series" where old fairy tales are retold by
modern authors;  no time travel in this one, but several Shakespearean
actors (including Robin Armin) wind up at a small liberal-arts college
in Minnesota in the 1970s.  It is also about true love, learning,
universities, and what a liberal arts education really equips you for,
and is the only novel I have seen so far about what reading Euripides
and Chaucer and Milton & Co. really ~feels~ like when you are a college
freshman.  Shakespeare does not appear himself but is always off-stage,
as it were....It is a bit like Robertson Davies, but even better.

Moira Russell
Graduate of St. John's College, which provides perhaps the ultimate
liberal education