In Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, the Endless, seven anthropomorphic personifications of aspects of consciousness, are as old as the universe. In 1389, two of the Endless, Death and Dream, grant deathlessness to an Englishman, Hob Gadling. Dream and Gadling meet in 1389, 1489, 1589, 1689, 1789, 1889 and 1989. In 1389, Geoffrey Chaucer is in the White Horse Inn. In 1589, William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlow are there. The attached image shows, from left to right, two drunks, Dream, Shakespeare and Marlow.
We have seen that Anderson based a novel on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest and that Gaiman based one Sandman installment on each of these two plays. Cardinal Richelieu asks Anderson's immortal, Hanno, whether he is the Wandering Jew and Gadling, although not Jewish, is mistaken for that legendary figure.
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I recalled how interested I was by that chapter of THE BOAT OF A MILLION YEARS featuring Cardinal Richelieu! Because popular myth tends to paint in dark colors, as a nearly demonic villain. Something Anderson totally rejected as false to the known facts about Richelieu.
Sean
There's a funny scene in one of Michael Scott Rohan's "Spiral" books where the 21st-century protagonist stumbles into a pub that he thinks is populated by affected arty longhairs arguing literature in yokel accents and quaffing "Real Ale". The people he's looking at are actually Shakespeare, Ben Johnson and Marlowe.
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