Tolkien plays off Shakespeare

[Lord Jubjub]

Shakespeare in the Merchant of Venice:
All that glitters is not gold (yeah, the original word is glisters)

Tolkien in Fellowship of the Ring:
All that is gold does not glitter.



Shakespeare in Macbeth:
Macbeth: I will not be afraid of death and bane,
Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.

Toklien in The Two Towers:
The chapter titled Treebeard



Shakespeare in Macbeth:
Macduff: Despair thy charm;
And let the angel whom thou still hast serv’d
Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother’s womb
Untimely ripp’d.


Tolkien in Return of the King
Witch-king: [n]o living man may hinder me

Eowyn: But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am, Éomund’s daughter. You stand
between me and my lord and king. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark
undead, I will smite you, if you touch him.
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Any other Shakespearean references can be found in Tolkien's work?

[Gillianren]

Probably. Everyone goes for Shakespeare eventually.

[Ara Pacis]

Well, Tolkien was trying to create a distinctly british myth. Makes sense that he would write it such that some old sayings would seem to have had an origin in the pre-history he was trying to describe. In other words, I think it was intentional.

[vonmazur]

The best rip off was "Forbidden Planet", followed by "West Side Story"....I am sure there are others...

Tolkien was fluent in Finnish, so he took a lot from their myths as well....

Dale

[RAF_Blackace]

The best rip off was "Forbidden Planet"

The Best ?

[vonmazur]

Blackace: I think it was close to the original play, (The Tempest) unlike some of the other ones....with car crashes and modern effects....Even the special effects in Forbidden Planet were in keeping with the original idea, not gratuitous hollywood crapola..

Dale

[Paul Beardsley]

JRRT was quite open about his borrowings. He thought the two examples from MacBeth cited in the OP were let-downs, and he wanted to do them "properly".

And Forbidden Planet was great! It borrowed heavily from The Tempest, but told a story that worked in its own right, and which probably inspired a fairly well-known television series that ran for quite a while.

[Gillianren]

A new movie version of it gets its wide release here next month and in the UK in March.

[vonmazur]

Gillian: Oy Boy! I can hardly wait for it!!

Dale