The regular viewer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is doubtlessly well-aware of the extraordinarily literate underpinnings of the show's diegetic world.  In the Buffyverse, references to pop culture and designer handbags coexist comfortably with more traditionally "highbrow" cultural references, like those to Beckett's Godot and to Bergman's Seventh Seal.  Indeed, one of BtVS’s most persistent traits is in its interrogation of exactly what constitutes cultural capital, and who rightly can be expected to possess it.  While some previous critics have observed the persistence with which Shakespearean references have figured in the show, a large-scale interrogation of Shakespeare's influence on BtVS has not yet emerged.

In “Shakespeare in Sunnydale,” I examine the network of intertextual references to Shakespeare within the world of Buffy.  The frequency of small, local allusions does not merely construct a Shakespearean “frame of reference” for the show; rather, it serves to intimate a larger Shakespearean framing device at work across nearly the entire 7-season cycle.  BtVS, both the series and the character, is profoundly influenced by, and arguably dependent upon, the Henriad (comprised of 1 and 2 Henry IV and Henry V), Shakespeare’s “series” about the meaning and the achievement of true kingship.  Like the Henriad, BtVS traces the trajectory of the ambivalent titular hero from profligate socialite to noble victor, and throughout, it references and analyzes what it means to assume one’s destiny and to lead responsibly. In this essay, then, I analyze the debt that Buffy’s characterization owes to the Henriad, providing examples from nearly all seasons of the show and clarifying the overarching intertextual allusion that Buffy constructs from it.