At what age do you guys think that Shakespeare should be read? I think reading him at an age too young invites too much misunderstanding, especially with the themes of his more serious (and lauded) plays. I myself started reading Shakespeare intermittently when I was already in my 20s.
What's your favorite Shakespeare play?
(I'm currently reading pic related, since it features the best villain Shakespeare wrote.)
Hamlet naturally. I started with him in senior year in high school and I think thats'a good starting point.
>>8095630
From when you're 16 and continuously and repeatedly until you expire
>>8095642
It's either Hamlet or Macbeth. I started with Macbeth, then followed up with Hamlet.
>>8095650
How do you compare Macbeth with Claudius?
>>8095661
they're both male
>>8095661
Claudius is more surreptitious with his treachery than Macbeth. Macbeth is more emotional, which is the reason why he was easily convinced by his wife regarding the throne.
I enjoyed Claudius's death more, though. It was glorious murder from Hamlet, who despite his fears and hallucinations, succeeded in being his father's avatar of vengeance.
tl;dr: I like Macbeth more, but I loved Claudius's death.
Interesting question. Obviously, you can't be asking for age "in years," since the measure of a man's life isn't shown in minutes, times, and hours. Nor are you asking for the vocation of a reader of Shakespeare (like "high school student" or "undergrad), for though one man in his time plays many parts, Jaques' trite observation about the human comedy wasn't a full picture of human life either.
I'd side with the perspective or Prospero or Duke Ferdinand:
Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy:
This wide and universal theatre
Presents more woeful pageants than the scene
Wherein we play in.
And
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
In other words, no one should read Shakespeare until has dawned on them the awareness that one is finite--after the death of a loved one, wishes denied and depression endured, true love lost or thwarted. Any time in a man's life when he is shocked or nudged out of his shallow narcissism (the chief evil of our age) and has eyes for a wider vista than his own, little life. When Anxiety and loneliness threaten to creep in, that's when the genius of Shakespeare and comfort, thrill, amaze, and calm.
...too much? 'Cuz I'm being serious here.
>>8095719
Oh, and my personal favorite is Richard II. Forgot myself for a second, there. Thinking on Shakespeare has that effect on me.
>>8095719
No, this is what I was also asking. It seems to me that most teenagers won't get the gist of Shakespeare, because when I was 14 I honestly asked myself why Shakespeare was considered the greatest writer ever and all I saw were gibberish words.
I think one needs to be more familiar with the world in order to understand and actually perceive plays like Hamlet to be transcendent literature.
Shakespeare could sometimes be so positive and sometimes be so ... nihilistic.
>>8095719
Saw Richard II and ignored it for Othello. Is it a good play of his? Because I've read that among Shakespeare's historical plays Henry V takes the cake.
>>8095730
For many teenagers theirs is the worst time to read Shakepeare, speaking as one just ten years along from that time. Teenagers are the most liable in our society to be especially self-centered and self-interested, and Shakespeare can speak only to a few lucky sensitive of those. I reread Romeo and Juliet recently as was struck by it's beauty, cleverness, and tragedy in a way to which my teenage self was completely deaf. I wasn't able, in particular, to see how much more brilliant Juliet was than Romeo, how radiant her grace, to be able to simultaneously see his oafish, youthful pretense and still love anyway.
>>8095737
Henry V is ok, but too political and boosterish for my tastes. Plus I never forgave Hal for how he treated Falstaff and his other friends.
Yes, Richard II is excellent. For one thing, it's completely in verse--a rarity for Shakespeare. It contains many strong couplets and an elevated, courtly language which tells the story of a great court where notion of honor and chivalry are just ready to come crashing down, yet treats these notions with the dignity they deserve, and not with any base or overly critical eye. Also, Richard himself is a fantastic character--he wears the mantle of majesty so completely that any question of affectation vs sincerity feels beside the point. He's a beautiful speaker, and yet manly at his core when you think about it. I wept for him.
>>8095791
Also, to call it a "history" is misleading and a projection by later scholars and textualists. Shakespeare didn't divide his own plays into comedy, tragedy and history. The title page of the first few quartos, if it's anything to go by, reads:
The Tragedie of King Richard the second
>>8095630
I agree. Maybe in Europe Shakespeare is okay, but at least here in Murka, middle of college or after is necessary.
>>8095719
>When Anxiety and loneliness threaten to creep in, that's when the genius of Shakespeare and comfort, thrill, amaze, and calm.
how's that?
You can read shakey when you're 14 if your education was jesuit.
Personally I can't read shakespeare without annotations, i bought the oxford edition a while back and regretted it.
>>8095833
The "and" is supposed to be a "can." I meant that when our normal self absorption is shaken, all the noise of our normal (self-)interest in the world is quieted. At those moments we can feel lost, anxious, or depressed, but they're also the moments when a man with a wide vision can give the world back to us, transfigured into something greater and more wonderful than our everyday, small one. See Heidegger, Being and Time, section 40.
Sorry if this is incoherent, I'm drunk and nostalgic for my old Shakespeare and phil profs.
>>8095842
14's a great time to stay Shakes if you're from a Jesuit school. Greatest Catholic denomination, those bros.
>>8095630
Much Ado About Nothing
>Implying books can't be reread
>>8095719
Are you that guy who always makes Shakespeare threads worthwhile? If that's so, good on you man, always fun to read your posts
>>8095630
Are you autistic by any chance?
>>8095791
And my god, that prison monologue:
>Ha, ha! keep time: how sour sweet music is,
When time is broke and no proportion kept!
So is it in the music of men's lives.
And here have I the daintiness of ear
To cheque time broke in a disorder'd string;
But for the concord of my state and time
Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;
For now hath time made me his numbering clock:
My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar
Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,
Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,
Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.
Now sir, the sound that tells what hour it is
Are clamorous groans, which strike upon my heart,
Which is the bell: so sighs and tears and groans
Show minutes, times, and hours: but my time
Runs posting on in Bolingbroke's proud joy,
While I stand fooling here, his Jack o' the clock.
This music mads me; let it sound no more;
For though it have holp madmen to their wits,
In me it seems it will make wise men mad.
Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me!
For 'tis a sign of love; and love to Richard
Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.
