Will the Real Shakespeare Please Stand Up Quiz

Answer: The Tempest

In 'Forbidden Planet', the parallel to Caliban is the uncontrollable "Id" of Dr. Morbius, a scientist marooned with his daughter on Altair IV. To Morbius' daughter, the men of the rescue ship (especially the captain) represent a "brave new world". Ariel, Prospero's agent, becomes Robbie the Robot.

While Prospero foresees the end of the "great globe", Morbius himself brings on the destruction of his planet.

Answer: Something Wicked This Way Comes

'Something Wicked This Way Comes' combines elements of fantasy and horror--a perfect match for Macbeth. Both works deal with the struggle between good and evil inclinations in each individual.

Answer: witches

The three witches in Macbeth are the Weird Sisters or Fates. The Weird Sisters are more mysterious than witches. The Weird Sisters are more like the Harpies in Greek mythology than the witches in Elizabethan Society. (Some scholars suggest that Lady Macbeth is a fourth Sister.) Nowhere in the play are the Weird Sisters referred to by Macbeth or Malcolm as "witches" - always as Weird Sisters. Elizabethan witches were usually portrayed as harmless old women whom we might mistake for bag ladies. They could curse, but not predict the future.

In Holinshed's Chronicles, Shakespeare's source, the women are unambiguously referred to as "Weird Sisters." They are the "spirits that know all mortal consequences."

Answer: James Bond

Like Bond, Marlowe served on Her Majesty's Secret Service. According to the Privy Council, Marlowe "had done Her Majestie good service," most likely as a secret agent abroad. At age 29, Marlowe was murdered in a tavern. His murderer may have
worked for the same secret service that valued him highly only a few years earlier.

Qfwfq is the main character in Italo Calvino's 'Comicomics', Pierre Menard is the author of Borges' fictional Quixote, and Zazie is the outrageous brat in Raymond Queneau's novel, 'Zazie Dans Le Metro'.

Answer: William Camden

William Camden taught Ben Jonson and may well have worked with Shakespeare, but Camden has never been suggested as the author of Shakespeare's plays. Ironically, Camden, more than the rest cited, had the intellectual background to author the plays. There is absolutely no evidence, however, that Camden did!

Answer: a horn growing out of his forehead

In 'All Fools', George Chapman presents a long, poetic dissertation on the omnipresent horn. On one level, the horn signifies a husband whose wife has been unfaithful, and, on another level, the degree to which we are all gullible. In our society, of course, the husband is more often considered the unfaithful one, especially in our popular culture; and the horn symbolism has disappeared.

The Elizabethan husband, by contrast, put his penis on his head (or had his wife do it for him). If you answered "a touch of melancholy" or any of the other incorrect responses, you must be hitting yourself on the forehead and saying, "Schmuck!" how could I have missed this one?

Answer: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

"I was not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be." T.S. Eliot's Prufrock identifies himself with Polonius to reinforce Prufrock's description of himself as mock-heroic.

Answer: King Lear

'King Lear' depicts the theme of human cruelty in a forthright, even painful manner. The play deals with questions about the existence and power of God, parent-child relationships, governing, and even the theater itself. Many of Shakespeare's major themes - banishment, appearance/reality, recognition, and regeneration - are here, together with the dramatic icons: storms, the stage, torture, and the invocation to chaos.

There is no evidence, however, that the play was greeted with special enthusiasm by Shakespeare's audience or his contemporaries.

Answer: Measure for Measure

"Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you". --Matthew 7:1-2 (KJV)

The play is classed as a comedy, but has significant dramatic tension that verges on tragedy along the way. Angelo's abuse of power when placed in control of Vienna during the duke's ostensible absence gets its comeuppance.

Answer: Hero

'Much Ado About Nothing' is about two pairs of lovers, Benedick and Beatrice and Claudio and Hero. Benedick and Beatrice are engaged in a "merry war"; they both proclaim their scorn for love, marriage, and each other. In contrast, Claudio and Hero are young people who are rendered practically speechless by their love for one another. By means of "noting" (which is sounded by Shakespeare's audience when reading "nothing", and which is gossip, rumour, and overhearing), Benedick and Beatrice are tricked into confessing their love for each other, and Claudio is tricked into rejecting Hero at the altar.

However, Dogberry, a Constable who is a master of malapropisms, discovers the evil trickery of the villain, the bastard (illegitimate and evil) Don John.

Some scholars name Dogberry - however bumbling, incoherent, and comical - the true hero of 'Much Ado About Noting'.