This is my favorite Shakespeare play. What's yours?

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>>7597647
>inb4 edgelord

You can tell a lot about someone when they give you their favorite Shakespeare.
Is that the only your ll read op?

>>7597647
Hamlet my son.

I like the Merchant of Venice and Twelfth Night. I've only read like four or five of his plays tho so that doesn't mean much.

Hamlet

Though I've always had a soft spot for Henry V

St Crispin's Day speech is GOAT

>>7597647
Hamlet and much ado

The Merchant of Venice. Some of his best lines and monologues are in that play.

>The quality of mercy is not strained

>Hath not a Jew eyes?

>So shines a good deed in a weary world

King Lear :^)

>>7597744
Is there a reason you're using that stupid fucking face? Is king lear a meme or something in this shithole?

>>7597740
>>So shines a good deed in a weary world
>yfw this is actually a widely propagated misquote
>yfw the actual line is fucking lame and without power

I was always bugged by Macbeth ... if his future shows becoming king ... why doesn't he just keep living with virtue?
How does being shown your future equate to being shown a possibility
and anyway if he was willing to kill to become king why did he need the reading of future anyway? I guess cause he read that as proof of success but....

>>7597758
Wow you did it.

>>7597757
Gene Wilder delivered it so well.

Lear and Twelfth Night.

Why is Twelfth never mentioned in these threads? It's widely regarded as the greatest comedy in the English language, and from all the times I've read it I can't find a reason not to agree.

It's just odd to me seeing things like Much Ado and Merchant of Venice mentioned far more.

>>7597772
because plebs

twelfth night is one of shakespeare's most intricate plays by far but it takes a modicum of effort to appreciate it, and no one here is willing to even exert themselves even a little bit

The Tempest! But I always feel guilty not mentioning Shakespeare's giants that I love so much; King Lear and Hamlet among them. But The Tempest just hits a particular note with me.

>>7597776
I considered that, but wanted to give people a legitimate chance to argue against the establishment and explain their preferences for almost certainly inferior comedies.

>>7597778
With you on that. Tempest, Macbeth, Hamlet best tier.

>>7597755
No reason, and no need to be angry, friend :^)

Henry v and richard III

>>7597776
>except me of course

Othello/Hamlet/JC because I love how edgy and cool they are.

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I think Henry VI is the most important to me largely because my Scottish clan and their ill-fated alliance with York, after the Battle of Towton.

I'm interested in the Bard's trilogy of plays on Henry VI because it's an angle that they would never have been able to envision at the time.

It's also amusing that when Richard III opens, Henry's corpse is still cooling. I guess I find it to be a sick thrill that they would have had some responsibility for his death.

I believe Shakespeare's characterization of the Yorkists to be more or less accurate.

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'Chimes at Midnight' is a good encapsulation of Shakespeare's first 'quadrilogy' (or Tetralogy).

https://youtu.be/1qRoyUcOi4E

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The Hollow Crown also runs through the first quadrilogy.

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>>>7597647
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swan_song

>>7597867
Is thr faggot on the left the guy who played Q in the recent Bond movies

Hard for me to pick between Julius Caesar and Midsummer Night's Dream.

The former because the main conflict of the play - Brutu's love for Caesar vs his royality to Rome - is I think the most interesting moral dilemma in a Shakespeare play.

The latter because the atmosphere is truly magical, when it comes to fantasy it makes me picture a more vivid fantasy forest than almost anything else I've read. The imagery is just stunningly beautiful.

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>>7597876

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>>7597834
>people who write and highlight in books

>>7597926
you can't be serious

why would you NOT write and highlight in your books? You can permanently record your thoughts from a period of your life you may never be able to accurately capture again

It's foolish not to write in a good book.

The Tempest, duh

I'm taking a Shakespeare class this semester, what can I expect /lit/?

>>7597958
first week will probably be history/context, then you'll read the comedies then you'll read the histories then you'll read the tragedies. Read the plays twice, and carefully.

As You Like It

>>7597926
>being autistic
m8, it doesn't even make sense to keep a book pristine. Let's be honest, you have paperbacks anyway..

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Am I the only person who likes watching plays in chronological order?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Films_by_century_of_setting

Lear and Mac

Is there a reliable group or troupe that put on well done performances of his work?
Ones that I can actually watch without going to the theater

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>>7598062
Thames productions are alright. It's a random 4-pack. Lear is the best one in it.

The BBC productions are available as a set on eBay, but it will cost more.

>>7597776
>but it takes a modicum of effort to appreciate it
Why more than any other Shakespeare play?
I've only read Twelfth Night and Midsummer Night's Dream

>>7598167
I'm the guy who originally posted the inquiry about why people ignore twelfth night, not the guy you asked, but...

Twelfth Night is simply more complex than most other comedies. It has a certain depth that needs guidance or study to really grasp. The characters represent a much larger range of emotion and thought than most comedies. Tragedies have time to dwell on these qualities, but somehow Twelfth Night manages to have the impact of far more contemplative stories while also having the fabulous, joyous qualities of Shakespeare's comedies. It's just perfect.

What are the best Shakespeare editions?

Want a balance between editorial notes, portability, and value.

>>7598217
Norton really make the best in terms of notes, and they're cheap. not the best construction but if you want to fully experience Shakespeare cheaply they're great.

>>7597647
Richard the III

>>7597647

For tragedies, Hamlet by far. Second place shared between Macbeth and Othello.

For comedies, Much Ado About Nothing.

>>7597776

It really feels great to posture for superiority on a board that's all about posturing for superiority, doesn't it?

>>7597660
whether or not you're being sincere, +1

mah nigga aaron
>oft i have digg'd up dead men from their graves
>and set them upright at their dear friends door
>even when their sorrows almost was forgot
>and on their skins, as on the barks of trees,
>have with my knife carved in roman letters
>"let not your sorrow die, though i am dead"

I like King Lear and Coriolanus the most, but I haven't read all of Shakespeare's plays yet.

>>7597710
my mom used to put on the branagh movies when i was like 8-10, the St Crispins Day speech was my fave

i was Henry V a la kenny for halloween one year. people thought i was just a knight. phssst.

>>7598293
Hey joe, how about you go back to reddit?

>>7597758
>implying witches exist

>>7597744
Muh niggard

>>7598217
Arden, Oxford, or Norton.

>>7598296
luv u too babydoll

>>7598246
/r/ing the 300 confirmed kills pasta done Shakespeare-style, iambic pentameter and all.

>>7597776

>no one here is willing to even exert themselves even a little bit

True. Proofreading a single line of text is arduous, huh?

>>7598310

Is this it?

What outcry have you uttered about my person, you oafish brute? I shall cordially remind you that I was the best scholar in my law class in Oxford, and I have been involved in several frivolous tea parties and courtroom disputes, and I have over 300 boxes of Earl Gray. I am proficient in the Simian school of diplomacy and I am the top linguist in my book club. Know that you resemble nothing in my eyes save for yet another uncultured mind. I will hasten your undisputed expiritation of the world with grace and finesse. The thought that you can retreat after jesting of such matters over the internet is laughable. As of this moment, I am telephoning a mutual friend to negotiate a swift and sure rebuttal to your argument so I would implore you to prepare yourself for the upcoming verbal deluge. The deluge that will no doubt saturate your life with discomfort. You are well and truly wrong, my good sir. My abilities of travel are unmatched, and I can recite over 700 lines from Shakespeare, and that is just from Hamlet. The amount of knowledge that I have acrued is vast, and I shall use it to firmly state my authority on such matters, you rapscallion. Truly, I wished you had some semblance of knowledge on the matter you have brought up and it's repercussions. Alas, you did not, and now you will suffer a fate most dire, you plebian. I shall defecate concentrated dislike upon you and you shall struggle to survive in it's waters. Pistols at dawn, old boy.

The Taming of the Shrew

>>7598321
that's more 'pomp and pompous Englishman' (it appears that somehow else has labeled this pasta 'Oxford lawyer.' hmmm) than 'Shakespeare' proper. Still jolly good, thank you.

>>7598167
>>7598199

hopping on, twelfth night plays a lot with metatheater so you have to stop for a moment and imagine what you actually see if you were watching it in the theater.

a great example is viola's character. in elizabethan times, female characters were usually played by young/adolescent boys, so you have a young boy dressed in a women - dressed up as a young boy - so it's just the actor without costume, or two layers of costumes, which was probably a source of great amusement to the public.

this is a very small and silly example but twelfth night is chock load of this kind of stuff. the sophistication and emotional depth of the characters definitely has partly to do with how many "masks" every character wears.

twelfth night and the tempest are probably the two most "complex" shakespearean comedies.

>>7598326
Say more lad.

>>7598333
It has one of my favorite sexual fetishes, mind break.

I like Titus Andronicus because it appeals to the edgy faggot within me

>>7597755
Yeah, why so angry :>)

Julius Caesar :~}

>>7597799
Has there ever been single(modern) actor who properly portrayed Hamlet without being shit?

The Tempest

>>7597799
ffs stop using the word edgy so much. It's so fucking unfunny when used in contexts like these.

>>7597710
We have the exact same opinions.

>>7597647
Coriolanus.

>>7597897
>Brutu's love for Caesar
m8 ...

>>7597776
Because I don't like comedies as much as his tragedies, most people are probably the same

>>7597758
>oh full of scorpions is my mind
The play is about ambition/free will vs suffering/fate among other things.

Is Macbeth king because he made it so or just because the witches said he would be?
Did he fall into the depths of insane paranoia because of the witches or out of guilt for his deeds?
Does he die to Macduff because he's fated to or because he gives up?

These are all things that directors have touched upon in different productions and adaptations of it. I liked the Fassbender portrayal where he just lets Macduff stab him, he was the one in control of his fate the entire time, he'd just slowly lost his mind in the process.

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>>7598581
>You common cry of curs, whose breath I hate
>As reek o' th' rotten fens, whose loves I prize
>As the dead carcasses of unburied men
>That do corrupt my air, I banish you!