Similarities
After the film's release, certain publications, including Private Eye, noted strong similarities between the film and the 1941 novel No Bed for Bacon, by Caryl Brahms and S. J. Simon, which also features Shakespeare falling in love and finding inspiration for his later plays. In a foreword to a subsequent edition of No Bed for Bacon (which traded on the association by declaring itself "A Story of Shakespeare and Lady Viola in Love") Ned Sherrin, Private Eye insider and former writing partner of Brahms', confirmed that he had lent a copy of the novel to Stoppard after he joined the writing team, but that the basic plot of the film had been independently developed by Marc Norman, who was unaware of the earlier work.
The film's plot can claim a tradition in fiction reaching back to Alexandre Duval's "Shakespeare amoureux ou la Piece a l'Etude" (1804), in which Shakespeare falls in love with an actress who is playing Richard III.
Read more about this topic: Shakespeare In Love
Famous quotes containing the word similarities:
“One internationally known twin researcher sees similarities between twins’ relationships and those of couple who have been married a long time. Fifteen-year-old twins, as well as spouses approaching their fortieth anniversary, each know their partners’ likes, dislikes, habits, and idiosyncracies as well as they know their own.”
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