Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Shakespeare in Space

While reading Macbeth last night for my Intro to Shakespeare class (English 339) I noticed Macbeth referred to a "dagger of the mind." I immediately recognized it as a title of an episode of the original Star Trek series. This got me to thinking about how many other episodes of the original Star Trek series likewise quoted Sharkespeare verbatum or in paraphrase. Below is my list:
  1. "Dagger of the Mind" (Season 1, Episode 9) ~ (Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 1)
  2. "Conscience of the King" (Season 1, Episode 13) ~ (Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2)
  3. "By Any Other Name" (Season 2, Episode 22) ~ (Romeo & Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2)
  4. "All Our Yesterdays" (Season 3, Episode 23) ~ (Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5)
 Of course this list only refers to episode titles in the original series and does not address the plethora of Shakespeare references in quotes and plot lines in the original series and the later spin-off series. It is also worth noting that numerous episodes of the original TV series featured names that looked/sounded Shakespearean but were not.

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