Literary Allusion Title / William Shakespeare

Literary Allusion Titles from the works of William Shakespeare.

---

Audio Plays

• Big Finish Doctor Who:
  • "The Chimes of Midnight" (Henry IV Part 2, III.ii)
  • "Full Fathom Five" (The Tempest, I.ii)
  • "He Jests at Scars..." (Romeo and Juliet, II.ii)

Comic Books

• Legends:
  • "Cry Havoc" and "Let Slip The Dogs Of War", the story titles of issues 4 and 5 (Julius Caesar, III.i)
• Legends of the Dead Earth:
  • "Nobler in the Mind" (Hamlet, III.i)
• The Sandman:
  • "Sound and Fury" (Macbeth, V.i)
  • "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "The Tempest". Both are directly related to the plays mentioned, even including text from them.
• The Smurfs:
  • "Romeos And Smurfette" (Romeo and Juliet)

Fan Works

• Much Ado About Shakespeare: Love's Labours Won: The fic has twofold: Love's Labour's Won is a lost play attributed by contemporaries to William Shakespeare. Scholars dispute whether it is a true lost work, possibly a sequel to Love's Labour's Lost, or an alternative title to a known Shakespeare play. Much Ado about Shakespeare is of course a play on Much Ado About Nothing.
• Ides of March is a Kaizo hack of Super Mario World. (Julius Caesar, I.ii)
• Final Fantasy VI Brave New World (The Tempest, V.i)

Film — Animated

• Gnomeo & Juliet (Romeo and Juliet)

Film — Live-Action

• Chimes at Midnight which is an adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry V
• Leave Her to Heaven, 1945 (Hamlet, I.v)
• Mere Oblivion, 2007 short film (As You Like It, II.vii)
• A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy, directed by Woody Allen (A Midsummer Night's Dream)
• North By Northwest, directed by Alfred Hitchcock (Hamlet, II.ii) ["I am but mad north-northwest/when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw"]
• Outrageous Fortune, 1987 (Hamlet, III.i)
• Seven Pounds, derived from the "pound of flesh" in The Merchant of Venice
• Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country ("The Undiscovered Country" from Hamlet, III.i)
• To Be or Not to Be, 1942 film and 1983 remake (Hamlet III.i)
• Were the World Mine, 2008 (A Midsummer Night's Dream)
• What Dreams May Come, 1998 (Hamlet, III.i)
• What's in a Name?, 2012 (Romeo and Juliet, II.ii)

Literature

• Boris Akunin:
  • All the World's a Stage, mystery novel centered on a theatrical troupe and named for the quote from As You Like It
• Stephen Ambrose:
  • Band of Brothers, WW2 history book and subsequent TV miniseries (Henry V, IV.iii)
• Christopher L. Bennet:
  • The Buried Age, Star Trek: The Lost Era novel (Sonnet 64). The book's four sections are:
    • "The Quality of Mercy" (The Merchant of Venice, IV.i)
    • "Rounded with a Sleep" (The Tempest, IV.i)
    • "Brave New World" (The Tempest, V.i)
    • "Abysm of Time" (The Tempest, I.ii)
• Ray Bradbury:
  • Something Wicked This Way Comes, novel and subsequent movie (Macbeth, IV.i)
• Robert Browning:
  • "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came", poem (King Lear, III.iv)
• Agatha Christie:
  • By the Pricking of My Thumbs (Macbeth, IV.i)
  • Taken at the Flood (Julius Caesar, IV.iii)
  • Sad Cypress (Twelfth Night, II.iii)
• Hunt Collins
  • Tomorrow and Tomorrow, novel (Macbeth, V.v)
• Philip K. Dick:
  • Time Out of Joint, novel (Hamlet, I.v)
• David Drake:
  • "Band of Brothers", short story (Henry V, IV.III)
• Dorothy Dunnett:
  • King Hereafter (Macbeth, I.iii)
• Ben Elton:
  • This Other Eden (Richard II, II.i)
• William Faulkner:
  • The Sound and the Fury, novel (Macbeth, V.i)
• Jasper Fforde:
  • Something Rotten, novel (Hamlet, I.iv)
• Frederick Forsyth:
  • The Dogs of War (Julius Caesar, III.i)
• Eve Forward:
  • Villains by Necessity, (King Lear, I.ii)
• Robert Frost:
  • "Out, out—", poem (Macbeth, V.i)
• John Green:
  • The Fault in Our Stars, (Julius Caesar, "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.")
• Georgette Heyer:
  • Envious Casca (Julius Caesar, III.ii)
• Aldous Huxley:
  • Ape and Essence (Measure for Measure, II.ii)
  • Brave New World (The Tempest, V.i)
  • Brief Candles (Macbeth, V.i)
  • Mortal Coils (Hamlet, III.i)
  • Time Must Have A Stop (Henry IV, Part 1, V.iv)
  • Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (Macbeth, V.v)
• Stephen King
  • The Breathing Method (or, A Winter's Tale), novella in Different Seasons (The Winter's Tale)
• Mercedes Lackey:
  • This Rough Magic, novel (The Tempest, V.i)
• Laura Lippman:
  • Another Thing to Fall, novel in Tess Monahan mystery series (Measure for Measure, II,i)
• Elizabeth Longford:
  • The Pebbled Shore (Sonnet 60)
• Seanan McGuire. All the novels in her October Daye series have titles taken from Shakespeare's plays. So far these include:
  • Rosemary and Rue (The Winter's Tale, IV.iv)
  • A Local Habitation (A Midsummer Night's Dream, V.i)
  • An Artificial Night (Romeo and Juliet, I.i)
  • Late Eclipses (King Lear, I.ii)
  • One Salt Sea (Henry V, I.ii)
  • Ashes of Honor (Henry VIII, V.v)
  • Chimes at Midnight (Henry IV, Part 2, III.ii)
  • The Winter Long (The Winter's Tale, IV.iv)
  • A Red Rose Chain (Venus and Adonis)
  • Once Broken Faith (Henry VI Part 3, IV.iv)
  • The Brightest Fell (Macbeth, IV.iii)
  • Night and Silence (A Midsummer Night's Dream, II.ii)
  • The Unkindest Tide (Two Gentlemen of Verona, II.iii)
• Alistair MacLean:
  • Where Eagles Dare, novel and subsequent movie adaptation (Richard III, I.iii)
  • The Way to Dusty Death, novel and subsequent movie adaptation (Macbeth, V.v)
• Jeff Mariotte:
  • Deny thy Father, Star Trek: The Lost Era novel (Romeo and Juliet, II.ii)
• Ngaio Marsh:
  • Light Thickens (Macbeth, III.ii)
• Richard Matheson:
  • Bid Time Return, subsequently adapted as Somewhere in Time (Richard II, III.ii)
  • What Dreams May Come, novel and subsequent movie adaptation (Hamlet, III.i)
• Malcolm Muggeridge:
  • Chronicles of Wasted Time (Sonnet 106)
• Vladimir Nabokov:
  • Pale Fire, novel (Timon of Athens, IV.iii); Lampshaded in the text!
• Ogden Nash:
  • "Very Like A Whale", poem (Hamlet III.ii)
• Larry Niven:
  • "When Birnam Wood", one of the chapters in The Integral Trees.
• Ada Palmer:
  • Too Like the Lightning, novel (Romeo and Juliet, II.ii)
• Robert B. Parker:
  • All Our Yesterdays (Macbeth, V.v)
  • Perchance to Dream (Hamlet, III.i)
  • Sea Change (The Tempest, I.ii)
  • Walking Shadow (Macbeth, V.v)
• Barbara Paul:
  • First Gravedigger, novel (minor character in Hamlet)
• Terry Pratchett:
  • Wyrd Sisters, Discworld novel (Shakespeare has "weird sisters" (Macbeth, I.iii), but still...)
• Marcel Proust:
  • Remembrance of Things Past (Sonnet 30), English translation of the novel A la recherche du temps perdu. Proust actually objected to the Shakespeare reference in the title, which his publisher insisted on in order to boost sales. Nowadays the title is usually translated literally: "In Search Of Lost Time".
• John Ringo:
  • Unto The Breach, novel (Henry V, III.i)
  • We Few, novel (Henry V, IV.iii)
• Dorothy L. Sayers:
  • Gaudy Night, Lord Peter Wimsey novel (Antony and Cleopatra, III.xiii)
• John Steinbeck:
  • The Winter Of Our Discontent, novel (Richard III, I.i)
  • The Moon Is Down, novella (Macbeth, II.i)
• Mary Stewart:
  • This Rough Magic, novel (The Tempest, V.i)
• Rex Stout:
  • And Be a Villain, novel (Hamlet, I.v)
• James Thurber:
  • The Macbeth Murder Mystery: Combined with Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The name of the play is ''The Tragedy of Macbeth'', because Shakespeare wrote it as a play in the tragedy genre, but the title of this short story interprets the play with the Murder Mystery genre.
• Kurt Vonnegut:
  • "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow", short story (Macbeth, V.v)
• David Foster Wallace:
  • Infinite Jest, novel (Hamlet, V.i)
• Kate Wilhelm:
  • Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, novel (Sonnet 73)

Live-Action TV

• American Dreams:
  • "What Dreams May Come" (Hamlet, III.i)
• Andromeda:
  • "All Great Neptune's Ocean" (Macbeth, II.ii)
  • "The Pearls That Were His Eyes" (The Tempest, I.ii)
  • "Star-Crossed" (Romeo and Juliet, I.i)
  • "Be All My Sins Remembered" (Hamlet, III.i)
• Babylon 5:
  • "The Quality of Mercy" (The Merchant of Venice, IV.i)
  • "The Paragon of Animals" (Hamlet, II.ii)
  • "Wheel of Fire" (This was also the title for the entire fifth season.) (King Lear, IV.vii)
• Band of Brothers, historical miniseries (Henry V, IV.III)
• Beauty and the Beast (1987):
  • "Beggar's Comet" (Julius Caesar, II.ii)
  • "The Chimes at Midnight" (Henry IV Part 2, III.ii)
• A Black Lady Sketch Show
  • "Rome and Julissa" (Romeo and Juliet)
• Boy Meets World:
  • "Brave New World" (The Tempest, V.i)
• Charmed (1998):
  • "Something Wicca This Way Comes" and "Something Wicca This Way Goes?" (play on "Something wicked this way comes", Macbeth, IV.i)
• Citizen Smith:
  • "Sweet Sorrow" (Romeo and Juliet, II.ii)
• Columbo: "Dagger of the Mind" (Macbeth, II.i). Fittingly, the episode revolves around a production of Macbeth.
• CSI: "Merchants of Menace" (play on The Merchant of Venice
• CSI: NY:
  • "What Schemes May Come" (play on "What Dreams May Come" Hamlet, III.i)
• Dallas:
  • "The Quality of Mercy" (The Merchant of Venice, IV.i)
  • "The Serpent's Tooth" (King Lear, I.iv)
• Dawson's Creek:
  • "To Be or Not to Be..." and "...That Is The Question" (Hamlet, III.i)
• Degrassi Junior High:
  • "Star-Crossed" (Romeo and Juliet, I.i)
• Doctor Who:
  • "Sleep No More" (Macbeth, II.ii, with the passage quoted in-episode)
• Due South:
  • "A Hawk and a Handsaw" (Hamlet, II.ii)
  • "Heaven and Earth" (Hamlet, I.v), with bonus in-episode quotation of the passage.
• ER:
  • "Loves Labor Lost" (Love's Labour's Lost, play)
  • "Fortune's Fools" (Romeo and Juliet, III.i)
  • "Such Sweet Sorrow" (Romeo and Juliet, II.ii)
  • "Quintessence of Dust" (Hamlet, II.ii)
• Eureka:
  • "All That Glitters" (The Merchant of Venice, II.vii)
• Farscape:
  • "Green Eyed Monster" (Othello, III.iii)
• The Flash (2014):
  • "What's Past is Prologue" (The Tempest, II.i)
• Gilligan's Island:
  • "Goodnight, Sweet Skipper" (Hamlet, V, ii)
• Heroes:
  • "Brave New World", episode title and also "volume" (i.e., season) title (The Tempest, V.i)
• Joan of Arcadia:
  • "Something Wicked This Way Comes" (Macbeth, IV.i)
• Knots Landing:
  • "My Kingdom for a Horse" (Richard III, V.iv)
• Law & Order:
  • "The Serpent's Tooth" (King Lear, I.iv)
  • "His Hour Upon the Stage" (Macbeth, V.v)
  • "Star-Crossed" (Romeo and Juliet, I.i)
• Lois & Clark:
  • "The Ides of Metropolis" (derived from "Beware the Ides of March" in Julius Caesar, I.ii)
• The Mary Tyler Moore Show:
  • "Party is Such Sweet Sorrow" (derived from "Parting is such sweet sorrow" in Romeo and Juliet, II.ii)
  • "Romeo and Mary" (Romeo and Juliet)
  • "Remembrance of Things Past" (Sonnet 30)
• Murder, She Wrote:
  • "Fire Burn, Cauldron Bubble" (Macbeth, IV.i)
• The Orville
  • "Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow" (Macbeth, V.v)
• Outrageous Fortune, New Zealand comedy/drama (Hamlet, III.i)
  • All its episode titles are also from Hamlet. Since there are 83 of them to date, they won't be listed here as they would take over the page.
• The Outer Limits (1995):
  • "Quality of Mercy" (The Merchant of Venice, IV.i)
  • "Inconstant Moon" (Romeo and Juliet, II.ii)
  • "Starcrossed" (Romeo and Juliet, I.i)
• Quantum Leap:
  • "The Play's the Thing" (Hamlet, II.ii)
• Slings & Arrows (Hamlet, III.i), and most of its episodes:
  • "Madness in Great Ones" (Hamlet, III.i)
  • "Outrageous Fortune" (Hamlet, III.i)
  • "A Mirror Up To Nature" (Hamlet, III.ii)
  • "Fair is Foul and Foul is Fair" (Macbeth, I.i)
  • "Steeped in Blood" (Romeo and Juliet, V.iii or Macbeth, III.v)
  • "Birnam Wood" (Macbeth, IV.i)
  • "Divided Kingdom" (King Lear, I.i)
  • "Vex Not His Ghost" (King Lear, V.iii)
  • "Every Inch A King" (King Lear, IV.vi)
  • "The Promised End" (King Lear, V.iii)
• Sorry!
  • "Perchance to Dream" (Hamlet, III.i)
  • "Winter's Tales" (The Winter's Tale)
• Stargate:
  • Stargate SG-1:
    • "Brief Candle", (Macbeth, V.i)
  • Stargate Atlantis:
    • "This Mortal Coil" (Hamlet, III.i)
    • "Be All My Sins Remember'd" (Hamlet, III.i)
• Star Trek:
  • "Dagger of the Mind" (TOS) (Macbeth, II.i)
  • "The Conscience of the King" (TOS) (Hamlet, II.ii)
  • "By Any Other Name" (TOS) (Romeo and Juliet, II.ii)
  • "All Our Yesterdays" (TOS) (Macbeth, V.v)
  • "Wink of an Eye" (TOS) (The Winter's Tale, V.ii)
  • "How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth" (TAS) (King Lear, I.iv)
  • Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (Hamlet, III.i)
  • "Thine Own Self" (TNG) (Hamlet, I.iii)
  • "Past Prologue" (DS9) (The Tempest, II.i)
  • "Heart of Stone" (DS9) (Twelfth Night, III.iv)
  • "Once More Unto the Breach" (DS9) (Henry V, III.i)
  • "The Dogs of War" (DS9) (Julius Caesar, III.i)
  • "Mortal Coil" (Voyager) (Hamlet, III.i)
  • "Vaulting Ambition" (DIS) (Macbeth, I.vii)
  • "What's Past is Prologue" (DIS) (The Tempest, II.i)
  • "Such Sweet Sorrow" (DIS) (Romeo and Juliet, II.ii)
  • "There Is A Tide..." (DIS) (Julius Caesar, IV.iii)
  • "Much Ado About Boimler" (LD) (Much Ado About Nothing)
  • "A Quality of Mercy" (SNW) (The Merchant of Venice, IV.i)
• St. Elsewhere:
  • "Remembrance of Things Past" (Sonnet 30)
• Supergirl (2015):
  • "Star-Crossed" (Romeo and Juliet, I.i)
• Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad:
  • "To Sleep, Perchance to Scream" (Hamlet, III.i)
• Supernatural:
  • "Something Wicked" (Macbeth, IV.i)
• The Twilight Zone (1959):
  • "Perchance to Dream" (Hamlet, III.i)
  • "The Purple Testament" (Richard II, III.iii, but attributed to Richard III in the episode)
  • "A Quality of Mercy" (The Merchant of Venice, IV.i)
• The Twilight Zone (1985):
  • "The Toys of Caliban" (The Tempest)
  • "Love is Blind" (The Merchant of Venice, II.vi)
• V (2009):
  • "Pound of Flesh" (The Merchant of Venice, III.iii/IV.i)
  • "Serpent's Tooth" (King Lear, I.iv)
  • "Uneasy Lies The Head" (Henry IV part 2, III.i)
• Veronica Mars:
  • "Green-Eyed Monster" (Othello, III.iii)
• The West Wing:
  • "The Dogs of War" (Julius Caesar, III.i)
  • "The Birnam Wood" (Macbeth, IV.i)
• The Zack Files:
  • "Zackeo and Juliet" (Romeo and Juliet)

Music

• Daniel Amos:
  • "Shedding the Mortal Coil", from ¡Alarma! (Hamlet, III.i)
  • "Uneasy Lies the Head of the Confidence Man", from Songs Of The Heart (Henry IV part 2, III.i)
• Concert Overture "Othello" (Op. 93) by Antonín Dvořák (title of play)
• doriko:
  • "Romeo and Cinderella" (Romeo and Juliet)
  • "Me and Juliet" (Romeo and Juliet)
• "Pomp and Circumstance Marches", classical music by Edward Elgar (Othello, III.iii)
• A Hawk and a Hacksaw, folk band (play on Hamlet, II.ii)
• "The Evil That Men Do", song by Iron Maiden, also from Julius Caesar.
• "The Dogs of War", song by Pink Floyd (Julius Caesar, III.i)
• ... Nothing Like the Sun, double album by Sting (Sonnet 130)
• "Romeo Had Juliette" by Lou Reed (Romeo and Juliet)
• Fleetwood Mac's album title Then Play On comes from Orsino's line in Twelfth Night ("If music be the food of love...), although they added the word "then."
• "A Winter's Tale", song by David Essex (The Winter's Tale)

Roleplay

• Darwin's Soldiers story Card of Ten (The Taming of the Shrew, II.i)

Tabletop Games

• The Lamentations of the Flame Princess supplement Veins of the Earth (The Tempest, I.ii)

Theatre

• The Goat or Who Is Sylvia, play by Edward Albee (The Two Gentlemen of Verona, IV.ii)
• Kiss Me, Kate (The Taming of the Shrew, II.i)
• Passing Strange (Othello, I.iii)
• The Play's the Thing, comedy by Ferenc Molnar adapted into English by P. G. Wodehouse (Hamlet, II.ii)
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, also made into a film in 1990 (Hamlet, V.ii)
• Something Rotten!, musical about Shakespeare (Hamlet, I.iv)

Video Games

• Dogs of War (Julius Caesar, III.i)
• "This Vortal Coil", Half-Life 2 Episode 2 (play on "this mortal coil" from Hamlet, III.i)
• The King of Shreds and Patches (Hamlet, III.iv)
• Star Trek: Judgment Rites' last two episodes are titled "Though this be Madness" and "Yet There's Method In It" (Hamlet, II.ii)

Web Animation

• Broken Saints Chapter 15, entitled "Tempest".

Webcomics

• Questionable Content: One comic is titled "King Lear".
• Roommates' 2012 Mind Screw arc is titled "Such Stuff as Dreams are Made on" (The Tempest, IV.i)

Web Original

• "Nothing Like The Sun", named after the opening line of Sonnet 130.

Western Animation

• Aladdin: The Series:
  • "Much Abu About Something" (Much Ado About Nothing)
• Arthur:
  • "Sleep No More" (Macbeth, II.ii)
• Batman: The Animated Series:
  • "Perchance to Dream" (Hamlet, III.i)
• Ben 10: Omniverse:
  • "Something Zombozo This Way Comes" (Macbeth, IV.i)
  • "O Mother, Where Art Thou?" (Romeo and Juliet)
• Darkwing Duck:
  • "The Merchant of Menace" (The Merchant of Venice)
• Futurama:
  • "Love's Labours Lost in Space" (Love's Labour's Lost)
  • "Roswell that Ends Well" (All's Well That Ends Well)
• Garfield and Friends:
  • "S3E07 Much Ado About Lanolin" (Much Ado About Nothing)
• Gargoyles:
  • "Enter Macbeth" (Macbeth, various acts and scenes)
  • "Ill Met By Moonlight" (A Midsummer Night's Dream, II.i)
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy:
  • "Something Stupid This Way Comes" (Macbeth, IV.i)
• Kim Possible:
  • "The Mentor of Our Discontent" (Richard III, I.i)
• Oscar's Orchestra
  • “Star-Crossed” ^note The episode’s German, Finnish, and Korean dubs are even more blatant, being retitled to German/Finnish/Korean for "Romeo and Juliet".
  • “My Kingdom For A Tank” (Richard III, V.iv)
• The Simpsons:
  • "Much Apu About Nothing" (Much Ado About Nothing)
• The Smurfs (1981):
  • "All That Glitters Isn't Smurf" (The Merchant of Venice, II.vii)
  • "Romeo and Smurfette" (Romeo and Juliet)
  • "All the Smurf's a Stage" (quote from As You Like It)
• South Park:
  • "Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes" (play on "Something wicked this way comes", Macbeth, IV.i)
• Spongebob Squarepants
  • "The Play's the Thing" (quote from Hamlet)
• Star Trek: Lower Decks:
  • "Where Pleasant Fountains Lie" (quote from Venus and Adonis, an euphemism for cunnilingus)
• Transformers: Animated:
  • "Sound and Fury" (Macbeth, V.i)

---