ABSTRACT
Like most fantasy writers, George R. R. Martin is a devotee of The Lord of the Rings. Martin’s engagement with Shakespeare was mediated by modern medieval history that was itself mediated by Shakespeare. And Martin exhibits a “Shakespeareanism” on the model of medievalism—a post-Shakespearean recreation of Shakespeare—as well as a “neoShakespeareanism” on the model of neomedievalism—an interpretation of interpretations of Shakespeare. Martin’s medievalism derives from a Victorian medievalism that derives from a Shakespearean medievalism. Whereas Martin’s medievalism claims historical accuracy yet rests on already inaccurate mediations of the Middle Ages from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—both historical and fictional—those medievalisms themselves derive from the already mythologized medieval world represented by Shakespeare. Yet Thomas B. Costain still structured his narrative around the Tudor myth codified by Shakespeare: the final volume in Costain’s series starts with the birth of Richard II and ends with the death of Richard III.
