Do you see an obvious re-write of Shakespeare in the Twilight series?

I only read the first book and thought the writing was pretty terrible- most of the characters other than Edward and Bella seemed like afterthoughts, and everyone gave Bella way more attention than she deserved. (But maybe it gets better later?) Meyers made references to Romeo and Juliet, but do you think the other similarities are intentional?

It’s a really interesting idea, though. Twilight might get a whole generation of readers interested in Shakespeare. Or maybe his writing is so familiar that modern day writers owe a huge debt to him for unintentionally re-using his themes and plots. Then again, I just read The seven basic plots and I’m seeing archetypes everywhere.

Great question!

Almost every story is a rewrite of Shakespeare, just as he rewrote Greek stories. There are only so many plot lines out there.

@tinyfaery I thought about that also. I looked for a reference to the “number of story” ideas, but was unable to find them. However, with the author’s own frequent references to Romeo and Juliet, I see a lot of other similarities to Shakespeare stories as in Midsummer’s Nights Dream.