Philipp Röttgers 
Shakespeare and his impact on modern day fiction. Traces of Cymbeline in George R.R. Martin’s ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ 

Seminar paper from the year 2016 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies – Literature, grade: 2, 0, University of Bonn (Institut für Anglistik, Amerikanistik und Keltologie), course: Mapping the Romances, language: English, abstract: This analysis looks at the similarities between Shakespeare’s play ‘Cymbeline’ and George R. R. Martin’s ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ books and tries to find out if Martin has been influenced by Shakespeare’s play and if the fantasy genre has been influenced by Shakespeare’s romances in general.

Fans and scholars have long argued if ‘Game of Thrones’ has been inspired by the works of William Shakespeare. Especially Macbeth is mentioned quite often, though Othello, Hamlet and King Lear are also mentioned from time to time. However, something that rarely comes up are the so-called ‘romances’, the plays (presumably) from Shakespeare’s last period. This might not seem odd, since the romances themselves are quite difficult to categorize in Shakespeare’s body of work. But when one looks at them, some similarities to the fantasy genre spring to the eye. There are wicked kings and queens, magic, apparitions of gods and fairy-tale-like figures, battles, fights, and much more that nowadays seems to be stereotypical of fantasy fiction. Since ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ uses many of these stereotypes, it can be seen as prototypical for the high fantasy genre.