ABSTRACT
The Shakespeare Code begins with a stagey dramatic scene. The chapter identifies shifts in the Doctor’s capacity to recognise Martha in her role. Martha Jones’s relationship with the Doctor is new and Rose seems very present in it. As Martha and the Doctor step out through the TARDIS door, the Time Lord, in punning mode, introduces a “brave new world”. In many allusions to William Shakespeare’s words and works, a young Romeo-like minstrel-lover, Wiggins, courts a beautiful girl, Lilith, as she looks out from her balcony. Shakespeare has overcome the possession and reasserted his special capacity to think and to symbolise human feeling through words. Emerging capacities for symbol formation institute and constitute a continuing developmental achievement enveloped in the transitions between paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions. With the evocation of a cult word from contemporary children’s literature, the TV audience will appreciate the collocation of literature and magic.
