Shakespeare World Cup 2018: The Teams

The 2018 football/soccer World Cup begins next week! As you might remember from my extensive coverage of the 2014 World Cup, I am a fan (albeit at a distance) of soccer, one of the only things to rival Shakespeare's plays as far as comedy, tragedy, and melodrama are concerned. 

However, for those of my readers who aren't huge soccer fans, to help you get through the next month of omnipresent soccer media coverage I present to you the SHAKESPEARE WORLD CUP, a parallel tournament featuring Shakespearean characters, with results determined by actual World Cup results. This way, when you're trapped listening to co-workers gripe about how England were knocked out in the round of 16 by Colombia, you'll be able to consult this handy parallel Shakespeare World Cup team list and discover that King Lear was just assassinated by Macbeth. 

Speaking of which, here's this year's line-up:

If you're curious as to how character/country pairs were determined, I used the Folger Digital Texts API to find Shakespearean characters with the largest word counts. (Note: word counts, not line counts, because I couldn't figure out if the API had a line count feature, so... there you go. Also, characters who appear in multiple plays only had their highest single-play word count taken into account.)

I then matched the characters with the top 70 word counts against the top 70 countries in the FIFA World Rankings as of May 17. The characters which matched with countries that qualified for the World Cup made it to the finals. This did result in some surprise eliminations - I'm still having a hard time imagining a World Cup without Cleopatra (a.k.a. the Netherlands) and Romeo (a.k.a Italy), but there you go.

Tune in next week for a handy wallchart you can use to track your favorite characters' progress through the tournament!

 

Previously Owned Equines

Today's comic is mostly an obscure conglomeration of in-joke, because sometimes you have to do that. 

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The passage in question is this one, from Macbeth:

ROSS

And Duncan's horses--a thing most strange and certain--
Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race,
Turn'd wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out,
Contending 'gainst obedience, as they would make
War with mankind.

Old Man

'Tis said they eat each other.

ROSS

They did so, to the amazement of mine eyes
That look'd upon't.

The Comedy of Really Stupid Parents

If you're not familiar with The Comedy of Errors, you need to know that it involves not one but two sets of identical twins. So... four separate twins. 

Four twins. But only two names.

Don't get me started on how each twin ends up wearing the EXACT SAME OUTFIT as their twin, despite having been separated geographically for at least two decades. I can't even begin to figure that one out.

Top Ten Prolonged Shakespearean Deaths

Remember when I put together that infographic on which Shakespearean character spends the most time dead onstage? Well, I decided to do another one, this time on which Shakespearean character spends the most time dying onstage. Here are the results of my haphazard investigation! 

EDIT: Thanks to Brad Filippone, who noted I forgot Salisbury from 1 Henry VI. (My apologies to Nick Asbury, my first and most memorable Salisbury.)

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My initial thought was that the #1 spot would go to Antony, who, as we know, is really bad at killing himself. I totally forgot that Edmund is dying onstage during much of the final King Lear exposition. So, take a bow, Edmund! You're the Prolonged Shakespearean Dying champion!

Special mention to Desdemona, who also made the top ten list of characters who spend the most time dead onstage. That's a really... special achievement. 

Poor Desdemona.