/lit/ what Shakespeare plays are the best? After the semester ends I have a month off, so I'd like to do something productive other than shitpost all day.
I read Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar in high school
>>7471922
My favs are the comedies- taming of the shrew and the comedy of errors. Also Titus Andronicus
the tempest is a summation of his work.
Nothing even comes close to Hamlet
Henry V has the best speech ever written, which classifies as
>things women will never understand
Worth it for that reason alone.
I don't think there is a clear best but even his worst play is still god tier.
coriolanus is pretty underrated imo
The Duchess of Malfi
>>7471953
I dunno man, King Lear was petty great.
>>7471958
What is his worst play then?
>>7471990
Pericles
Of the plays I've read, I really enjoyed Othello, Julius Caesar and Coriolanus. Since you've read Julius Caesar you could also read Anthony and Clepoatra as a follow-up.
>>7472005
Pericles is interesting because of the way it survives - only as a 'bad' quarto, as it wasn't included in the First Folio. If a good version of it had survived, it might have a better reputation.
Then again, maybe barely any of it is actually by Billy Shakes anyway, hence it being excluded from the First Folio.
>>7471953
we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here
>>7471922
>what Shakespeare plays are the best?
The Jew of Malta, Dr Faustus.
>>7472005
>>7472037
The only good part is that it makes fun of Gower using iambic tetrameter, other than that you might as well just read Apollonius of Tyre by Gower if you're going to read any British take on the myth. Pericles is still a funny isolated incident because of Marina, and seeing how she fits in with Shakespeare's other women (she's a hired prostitute who never has sex with anyone because she tells them how depressing it is needing a prostitute, pretty witty imo).
Richard II and Taming of the Shrew are great, also Merchant of Venice is a pleasant read despite its horrible reputation.
Chandos's Giant Jpeg is his boldest representation.
>>7472056
lol U solved the ancient riddle anon! Marlowe literally wrote all of Will's work. MAD ARCHIVÉZ SKILLZ
>>7471990
The Merry Wives Of Windsor is pretty terrible, and was probably dashed off in haste as an inoffensive court amusement. Titus Andronicus is a grotesque parody of Marlowe at his least plausible, and is filled with ludicrously over-the-top violence.
Othello because Iago is 4chan.
>>7471922
Hamlet and Twelfth Night are both great.
Titus Andronicus is bad in a good way, the verse is good but the plot is entirely cheesy torture porn.
>>7471922
Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony And Cleopatra, Othello, Henry IV (both parts), As You Like It, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Love's Labor's Lost. Those are the summits of Shakespeare's genius. As for commentary, anything about Shakespeare that was written by Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt, and Harold Bloom is well worth reading. Also, the Arden volumes of Shakespeare's plays are the ones to get, and have the best annotations, introductions and histories to go with the most definitive texts of the plays.
