There are several reasons as to why P G Wodehouse, fondly referred to as Plum, is revered so very highly. For lesser mortals, 
one of these is surely the manner in which he makes fun of a decadent British aristocracy. He does so by skillfully juxtaposing strict social norms against nonsensical and ridiculous acts which rank rather high on the Goofiness Index. Then there is his unique use of the English language, with twists which could gladden the hearts of some of the most morose amongst us.
One other factor which endears Wodehouse to his ardent fans is the manner in which he draws upon the works of such other literary figures as Shakespeare, Keats, Shelley, Tennyson, Rudyard Kipling, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde.
In the Wodehouse canon, The Bard has a unique place. Almost all of Plum’s works are littered with references to the literary outpourings of Shakespeare. This enriches the very texture of Plum’s whodunits, placing him at the magnificent table of our literary high priests and priestesses. A fan of his cannot be blamed for savouring the delectable cocktails Wodehouse serves, much like the warm inner glow of spring sunshine she relishes, especially after having braved a prolonged spell of harsh winter.
The Bard’s contribution to Plum’s scintillating humour
When someone’s obesity is to be commented upon, The Bard comes in handy. When the protagonist or the narrator faces an apparently insurmountable challenge, the term ‘sea of troubles’ gets deployed. When confusion reigns supreme, as it invariably does when such woolly headed characters as Bertie Wooster or Lord Emsworth happen to be around, poor Macbeth – ‘the cat chap’ in Bertie’s lingo – reinforces the scenario. Lady Macbeth, when taunting her husband for being indecisive about murdering King Duncan and occupying the throne of Scotland, would have little imagined the kind of indelible impact she has
left behind in the realm of humour.
A lay reader, while navigating her way through one of Plum’s narratives, could suddenly come upon a turn of Shakespearean phrase and get surprised, much like a nymph while bathing. Many of the phrases are so very well-knit into these narratives that one who is not familiar with the extensive works of The Bard could be forgiven for simply missing out on the same. The notion that ‘it’s always just when a fellow is feeling particularly braced with things in general that fate sneaks up behind him with the bit of lead piping’ is one such fine example. The phrase ‘harsh slings and arrows of fate/life’ perhaps falls in the same genre. Another one is Jeeves’ reference to ‘quills upon the fretful porpentine’, a phrase deployed by the ghost in Hamlet. Yet another one is about ‘some rain falling in each one’s life’.
If poor Macbeth and Hamlet get mangled up by Bertie in quite a few of Plum’s narratives, King John and Henry VI pop up in Something Fresh. Whether a work was published in the 1920s or in the 1970s appears to make no difference, what with Shakespearean references popping up at frequent intervals, much to the delight of Plum’s fans.
Here is a random sample of some such references.
Diving into a sea of troubles
Not surprisingly, ‘a sea of troubles’ is an expression which pops up rather frequently.
Making Bertie dive into a sea of troubles
In Jeeves in the Offing (1960), we have in residence at Brinkley Court an American family, the Creams, who need to be handled 
delicately so as to facilitate a big business deal with Bertie’s uncle. The Rev. Aubrey Upjohn is around, with his stiff upper lip chilling Bertie’s soul; so is his daughter Phyllis, who is infatuated with the supposedly kleptomaniac Willie Cream, and must be put off. Roderick Glossop, the eminent loony doctor, is there disguised as a butler. To add to all this we have Roberta Wickham! The scenario is ripe for the Bard to come in.
‘I quivered like a startled what-d’you-call-it. She had spoken with a cheery ring in her voice that told an experienced ear like mine that she was about to start something. In a matter of seconds by Shrewsbury clock, as Aunt Dahlia would have said, I could see that she was going to come out with one of those schemes or plans of hers that not only stagger humanity and turn the moon to blood but lead to some unfortunate male—who on the present occasion would, I strongly suspected, be me— getting immersed in what Shakespeare calls a sea of troubles, if it was Shakespeare. I had heard that ring in her voice before, to name but one time, at the moment when she was pressing the darning needle into my hand and telling me where I would find Sir Roderick Glossop’s hot-water bottle.
Many people are of the opinion that Roberta, daughter of the late Sir Cuthbert and Lady Wickham of Skeldings Hall, Herts., ought not to be allowed at large. I string along with that school of thought.’
When falling in love with the wrong sort of person
In The Right Approach (A Few Quick Ones), Shakespeare comes to the aid of Augustus at the very moment he discovers he is in love.
‘”I am relieved to hear it. He used to be troubled a good deal by clergyman’s sore throat, like my niece Hermione’s father, the late Bishop of Stortford,” said Mrs. Gudgeon, and it was at this moment that Augustus came to the decision which was to plunge him into what Shakespeare calls a sea of troubles.’
The famous Gussie speech
Who can forget the hilarious and abusive speech delivered by a thoroughly sozzled Gussie Fink Nottle at the Market Snodsbury
Grammar School? [Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)]
“What I wanted to say was this—and I say it confidently—without fear of contradiction—I say, in short, I am happy to be here on this auspicious occasion and I take much pleasure in kindly awarding the prizes, consisting of the handsome books you see laid out on that table. As Shakespeare says, there are sermons in books, stones in the running brooks, or, rather, the other way about, and there you have it in a nutshell.”
When obesity needs to be captured in all its glory
Those of us who fret and fume over the losing the flab can surely draw some comfort from the fact that Wodehouse often casts a critical eye on characters which possess too many layers of fat onto their physical frames.
A grave challenge for bathing suit designers
‘It was the photograph of an elderly man in a bathing suit; an elderly man who, a glance was enough to tell, had been overdoing it on the starchy foods since early childhood; an elderly man so rotund, so obese, so bulging in every direction that Shakespeare, had he beheld him, would have muttered to himself “Upon what meat doth this our Horace feed that he is grown so great?” One wondered how any bathing suit built by human hands could contain so stupendous an amount of uncle without parting at the seams. In the letter he had written to Oofy announcing his arrival in England Horace Prosser had spoken of coming home to lay his bones in the old country. There was nothing in the snapshot to suggest that he had any bones.’
The Fat of the Land (A Few Quick Ones)
Of agents who ‘recover’ potentially harmful letters from chorus girls
Residents of Plumsville would recall the character of R. Jones, who is commissioned by Freddie to “recover” some letters he 
had sent in the past to a certain chorus girl who they would readily recognize as Joan Valentine. [Something Fresh (1915)]
This is how he gets described.
‘On the theory, given to the world by William Shakespeare, that it is the lean and hungry-looking men who are dangerous, and that the “fat, sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o’ nights,” are harmless, R. Jones should have been above suspicion. He was infinitely the fattest man in the west-central postal district of London. He was a round ball of a man, who wheezed when he walked upstairs, which was seldom, and shook like jelly if some tactless friend, wishing to attract his attention, tapped him unexpectedly on the shoulder.’
When a tedious tale has to be told!
In the same narrative, whereas Lord Emsworth thinks the scarab discovered in his coat pocket is a gift to him from Mr Peters, the latter suspects the Earl to have stolen the same. He is offering £1,000 to anybody who can pose as his valet and retrieve the scarab from Blandings Castle. Ashe Marson appears for an interview.
In Mr. Peters’ version the Earl of Emsworth appeared as a smooth and purposeful robber, a sort of elderly Raffles, worming his way into the homes of the innocent, and only sparing that portion of their property which was too heavy for him to carry away. Mr. Peters, indeed, specifically describes the Earl of Emsworth as an oily old second-story man.
‘Shakespeare and Pope have both emphasized the tediousness of a twice-told tale; the Episode Of the Stolen Scarab need not be repeated at this point, though it must be admitted that Mr. Peters’ version of it differed considerably from the calm, dispassionate description the author, in his capacity of official historian, has given earlier in the story.’
(To be continued….)
(Notes:
Inputs received from some ardent fans of Wodehouse are gratefully acknowledged.
Related posts:
https://ashokbhatia.wordpress.com/2017/06/26/the-perils-of-not-suffering-from-shakespearitis
https://ashokbhatia.wordpress.com/2017/07/08/presenting-a-plummy-shakespeare-part-2-of-3)
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one of these is surely the manner in which he makes fun of a decadent British aristocracy. He does so by skillfully juxtaposing strict social norms against nonsensical and ridiculous acts which rank rather high on the Goofiness Index. Then there is his unique use of the English language, with twists which could gladden the hearts of some of the most morose amongst us.
ashokbhatia 