Ballad: An Unfortunate Likeness

In “An Unfor­tu­nate Like­ness” from *The Bab Bal­lads*, the nar­ra­tor, an artist who has ded­i­cat­ed his career to paint­ing William Shake­speare in var­i­ous stages of his life, encoun­ters an indi­vid­ual with a strik­ing resem­blance to the Bard him­self. Excit­ed­ly, the artist believes this man would serve as the per­fect mod­el for his Shake­speare-themed art­works, acknowl­edg­ing the chal­lenges he has faced in cap­tur­ing Shake­speare’s icon­ic vis­age.

Despite his numer­ous attempts to depict Shake­speare in var­i­ous roles—from a play­ful infant to a trades­man and even a botanist—the artist admits to falling short of accu­rate­ly repli­cat­ing the “glim­mer of his won­drous eye.” One day, as he pre­pares to frame a new piece, he spots a passer­by whose appear­ance vivid­ly reminds him of Shake­speare. Over­come with impul­siv­i­ty, the artist invites the stranger to sit for a por­trait, to which the man reluc­tant­ly agrees.

As the artist works, he mar­vels at the man’s noble fea­tures, imag­in­ing the incred­i­ble for­tune of bear­ing such a notable resem­blance to Shake­speare, humor­ous­ly envi­sion­ing the man enjoy­ing mun­dane aspects of life (like blow­ing one’s nose) with the grace of Shake­speare’s “cast-off coun­te­nance.” How­ev­er, the sto­ry takes a turn when the sit­ter, referred to as the “Shakesper­ian boy,” reveals the curse behind his cel­e­brat­ed like­ness.

The man describes how his Shake­speare­an appear­ance has been a source of mis­ery rather than joy. In the­aters, church­es, and social gath­er­ings, he is con­stant­ly com­pared to Shake­speare, over­shad­ow­ing his indi­vid­ual iden­ti­ty. His endeav­ors to engage in ordi­nary con­ver­sa­tions at par­ties or express him­self are met with reminders of his like­ness to Shake­speare, urg­ing him to uphold a lev­el of elo­quence befit­ting the Bard—an expec­ta­tion he invari­ably finds bur­den­some.

In a twist of irony, while the artist envies the man for his phys­i­cal con­nec­tion to Shake­speare, the sit­ter laments the per­pet­u­al expec­ta­tions and com­par­isons that accom­pa­ny his appear­ance. Ulti­mate­ly, the artist rec­og­nizes the fol­ly in his envy, as the man’s resem­blance to Shake­speare becomes a source of unwel­come scruti­ny rather than admi­ra­tion. The bal­lad humor­ous­ly explores themes of iden­ti­ty, the bur­den of expec­ta­tions, and the iron­ic mis­for­tunes that can accom­pa­ny out­ward appear­ances.