Talk:William Shakespeare/archive

Copyright disclaimer
I'll put the email I received from Dr. Delahoyde here in case anyone has any questions, concerns, etc.

Jack--

You certainly have my permission to use that material. I had Sean Hall's permission originally to incorporate it into my web site, so although I no longer know how to contact him, I too am sure he would be pleased with basic attribution and the share-alike license as you summarize it here.

Cool project! Let me know when assimilation is completed.

--Michael Delahoyde

Hopefully this page will be a success. :) --Vedek Dukat Talk 19:58, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Featuring this article
This would be a great article to feature on the main page eventually. The main thing to work on would be the specific quotations used in the episodes, although I suppose we could settle for citing the act and scene. This will give more context, even in some cases (like the title for ) where it's pretty clear what the writers were thinking. We'd also have to make certain we had all the references in order to be definitive - which is hard to judge, but not impossible.

The article might be a bit too "meta" for some people, but IMHO it perfectly fits the image of what MA stands for: an encyclopedia dedicated to everything Star Trek. I also found it a fascinating read. Nice work, Vedek! --Broik 18:16, 3 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with everything you've said, Broik. Perhaps we could do a peer-review on this page (its been a while since we've done one, to my knowledge!).  Certainly, there's enough information on the page, but it could do with a bunch of us checking it over for mistakes.  Zsingaya  18:21, 3 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I love the idea of featuring the article. We don't need to quote each line of Shakespeare. We can just put in the proper citation, (Plays: II.ii.22-42; Sonnets: Sonnet 18.2). What I would like to do eventually is go through all the quotes and figuring out the references and influence of each quote to the episode (ie. Marta, Picard, Data's Henry V). Would this be appropriate? (Tyger 22:41, 4 April 2006 (UTC))


 * That would be great, Tyger, and it would make Broik's original idea of featuring the article all the more appealing. Zsingaya's probably right about it having been a while, the canonicity dispute had a pretty big fallout IMO. Weyoun 15:19, 9 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't know, to me it sounds cheap to make this a featured article while 90% of it is copied from another source. (Although with permission) Don't get me wrong its a excellent article and I enjoyed reading it but it seems to me all MA archivists had to do was fill in the blanks. Just my POV -- Q 09:31, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Though, I agree most of the article is from another source. I hope to change that and make it MA's own. I've already added in my own commentary about the sonnets and the measure. The problem with writing Shakespeare-related articles (whether it be academic or for fun) most topics have already been done. Even About.com has a similar article about Shakespeare+Star Trek. The changes I am making to the article are hopefully to document and write about how Shakespeare has influence the each episode a quote was cited. I'm looking for primariy sources (such as Patrick Stewart's writings on Shakespeare...though it's mostly on Merchant of Venice...I just need to double check...hopefully by next week). If the community continues to help make these types of changes, (instead of the simple reference) we'll be able to make this article our own... (tyger 00:52, 25 April 2006 (UTC))

Shakespeare and Star Trek/peerreview
I think there's plenty of information on the page, but maybe it could be better organised somehow. I like the way its been written, but I'd like to know what other people think about it. Zsingaya 19:38, 7 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it would be good if the works by Shakespeare that have their own articles at MA were linked like:


 * The title is a reference to Macbeth, Act II, Scene i.
 * The title is a reference to Macbeth, Act II, Scene i.


 * Also, here are links to two books that might be helpful as well:


 * Hamlet on the Holodeck


 * The Literary Galaxy of Star Trek: An Analysis of References And Themes in the Television Series


 * --Jörg 21:22, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Hey, that sounds like a good plan, Jorg. Also, those books both look very good :-) Zsingaya  21:53, 7 April 2006 (UTC)


 * My main concern is the POV, because we need to make it sound less less critical and more encyclopedic (e.g. "it is only fitting that he becomes the basis for drama in the future") in places. Couple of other things, such as in some areas the Roman numerals for both act and scene are capitalized, while in others the scene is in lower case letters (I don't know what's the "proper" way to do this), and there are some places where we've yet to elaborate upon where the quote came from.


 * Those books would be interesting reads, and if anyone has access to them or is interested in them, we could get some additional info from their authors' takes on the issue. The link between Shakespeare and Star Trek is something I've always heard about but never looked into, so it's a great topic to cover! Overall I definitely like what I see.


 * As for organization we could have a section on Roddenberry's use of Shakespeare as a platform for exploring modern-day issues, then another on how this style disappeared over time, and a separate one somewhere about how a lot of Star Trek actors were used to doing stage work and whatnot.


 * One last thing I remembered: where's the mention of the debacle that became ? :-) Weyoun 23:29, 9 April 2006 (UTC)


 * There's way more to be said on this topic that I'd have thought, but I think it's a good idea to split the "Effects on the Franchise" section thus:
 * TOS and TNG, or possibly a separate section for each of those if there's enough to be said about how differently the two used Shakespeare
 * Post-TNG series and the relative lack of Shakespearean influence, maybe a bit about possible causes
 * Differing interpretations of the relationship between Trek and Shakespeare, along with a bit more on the notion that it can be construed as an attempt to bring Shakespeare to the mainstream American audience and, by some accounts, "claim" Shakespeare as their own.
 * Book sources would be good, but I don't think we should necessarily wait around for them to come. See here for some stuff we might have missed and here for a good analysis of misc. things such as which characters represent Shakespearean ones in various episodes. Let's prove to Wikipedia that Memory Alpha is the definitive Trek reference and not just some spin-off of WP. ;) --Vedek Dukat Talk 02:36, 10 April 2006 (UTC)


 * With regard to the citation, the part about Undiscovered Country does this correctly; to cite a specific line within a scene within an act within a play, you would say "Hamlet III.i.57" (act 3, scene 1, line 57). I suppose you would thus say "Act III, scene i" if you were doing it in prose, although I'm partial to formal citations. Weyoun 19:22, 14 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it would be worthwhile to cite Patrick Stewart's professional history as a member of the Royal Shakespeare Co., since this clearly inspired and informed many of the Shakespeare references in TNG. --SLJ91 19:45, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm noticing a lack of any Enterprise information: is this just because no ones been added yet? I'd add it myself, but I'm going away for a day or two starting within the hour, and don't have time to research it. But the two most prominent references (both stating his name, directly) are in "Cogenitor" when Drennik reads all of his works overnight, and quotes some of it to Archer the next day; and - where Phlox says something like, "the literature in both universes are very different, with the exception of Shakespeare." or something. If nothings been done later, I'll see what I can add. - AJ Halliwell 19:52, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Possible for an article on more than just Shakespeare?
Shakespeare's work is among the most firmly established as quoted in Star Trek, but it is by no means the only classical literature the stories have presented versions of. Who, for instance, can forget Khan, not only in reference to Moby-Dick (and for those who've seen me work several times on it here, lately...yeah, Moby-Dick would be my favorite, ever) but also to Milton's Satan in Paradise Lost? What of the entire series of Voyager, through all its encounters with usually the thought-provoking, sometimes the absolutely bizarre, to The Odyssey? Heck, even the balance in TOS and TNG, and even to present day after a fashion, between the Federation, Klingons and Romulans is reminiscent of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Classical literature...the Bard foremost but not at all solely, is something that has been the spark behind many of the most profound moments in Star Trek history. Would that there could be both an article and list of the episodes and movies connecting, whether directly or indirectly, to the great works. --ChrisK 10:09, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * That would be a serperate article I would think. I'm all up for it especially since VOY barely uses Shakespeare references and makes more use of Greek and Victorian literature. Where do you want to start? --tyger 20:52, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Shakespeare in the original Klingon
Should Nick Meyer's line from STVI about "Shakespeare in the original Klingon" really be described as an "attempt at humour"? Whether its actually funny or not is irrelevent; the line was no attempt at humour at all. Instead, it was to draw parallels between Chang's Klingons and Goebbel's Germans, both of whom claimed that Shakespeare was of their race.

By Any Other Name
"by any other name" rather than "by any other word" is not a corruption. The former is the reading found in the quarto version of Romeo & Juliet, the latter in the folio version. While the folio is generally considered a "better" edition, calling the "by any other name" reading a corruption is not accurate. -129.59.98.187 10:42, 22 April 2008 (UTC)