Now that I’ve read all of Shakespeare’s plays, why not do some rankings and annoy people with my choices?
So here we go:
My 5 favourite plays:
Macbeth
Othello
King Lear
Measure for Measure
The Winter’s Tale
My 15 favourite plays:
Macbeth
Othello
King Lear
Measure for Measure
The Winter’s Tale
Hamlet
Henry IV, Part 1
Henry IV, Part 2
Twelfth Night
The Merchant of Venice
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
The Tempest
Richard II
Richard III
Julius Caesar
5 greatest male characters:
Macbeth in Macbeth
Hamlet in Hamlet
Iago in Othello
Falstaff in Henry IV plays (not The Merry Wives of Windsor)
Shylock in The Merchant of Venice
5 favourite male characters:
Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet
Falstaff in Henry IV plays (not The Merry Wives of Windsor)
Barnardine in Measure for Measure
Macduff in Macbeth
The Fool in King Lear
5 greatest female characters:
Lady Macbeth in Macbeth
Rosalind in As You Like It
Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra
Viola in Twelfth Night
Isabella in Measure for Measure
5 favourite female characters:
Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing
Emilia in Othello
Hermione in The Winter’s Tale
Rosalind in As You Like It
Margaret in Henry VI Part 2, Henry VI Part 3, and Richard III (not Henry VI Part 1)
Favourite couple:
Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing
Favourite non-speaking character:
Crab the dog in The Two Gentlemen of Verona
5 most evil characters:
Iago in Othello
Goneril in King Lear
Regan in King Lear
Leontes in The Winter’s Tale
Richard III in Richard III
10 favourite Shakespeare productions and films:
Macbeth (1979), dir. Trevor Nunn, with Ian McKellen as Macbeth and Judi Dench as Lady Macbeth
King Lear (2016), dir. Michael Buffong, with Don Warrington as Lear
The Winter’s Tale (1999), dir. Gregory Doran, with Antony Sher as Leontes
Hamlet (1990), dir. Kevin Kline, with Kevin Kline as Hamlet
The Merchant of Venice (1973), dir. John Sichel, with Laurence Olivier as Shylock
Twelfth Night (1988), dir. Kenneth Branagh, with Frances Barber as Viola and Richard Briers as Malvolio
Measure for Measure (1979), dir. Desmond Davis, with Kate Nelligan as Isabella
The Taming of the Shrew (1976), dir. William Ball and Kirk Browning, with Marc Singer as Petruchio
Ran (1985), dir. Akira Kurosawa
Much Ado About Nothing (1993), dir. Kenneth Branagh
10 favourite books about Shakespeare:
Prefaces to Shakespeare by Tony Tanner
The Wheel of Fire by G. Wilson Knight
The Crown of Life by G. Wilson Knight
Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth by A. C. Bradley (updated on 8/6/2023)
The Genius of Shakespeare by Jonathan Bate
Soul of the Age by Jonathan Bate
Shakespeare: The World As Stage by Bill Bryson
Shakespeare by Anthony Burgess
Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? by James S. Shapiro (doubtful, see discussion below in the comments)
_
Now give me your lists.
Five is hard. I'd be tempted to put Richard II in my top five. I find that play shockingly underrated. (Except for a few great speeches, I don't see Richard III at all.) I'd also want to make room for Twelfth Night, but then what would I drop? I'll bet Measure for Measure gets the most pushback, and wouldn't be in my five, though it is a pretty fascinating play.
ReplyDeleteI've definitely made a note of your Shakespeare criticism books. Following along has made interested in several of those.
Yeah, Richard II has better poetry than Richard III, but I like the latter for the drama and characterisation.
DeleteI still have to read Bradley's book. That one is important.
Actually now I've swapped Cymbeline out to make space for Richard II hahahaa.
DeleteThat is the other thing--it might really depend on the day of the week... ;-) There's bound to be some days I'd have Hamlet in my top five, but then it is a bit too long...
DeleteMy top 4 don't change as I'm obsessed with them and keep thinking about them. It's the fifth one that may vary.
DeleteHamlet is a great play but I'm not obsessed with it for some reason.
This is the statement that would probably get me in trouble. I'm pretty sure the next play I'd drop out of my top five would be Lear. He's meant to, of course, but he does irritate me, and he's so difficult for an actor to pull off.
DeleteYou have to watch the King Lear production I mentioned.
Delete
ReplyDeleteShakespeare is difficult to bring off on screen - either in cinema or on television - but it can be done. Often, the best versions are films made from theatrical productions. I very enthusiastically second your choices of Macbeth, King Lear, Twelfth Night, & The Winter’s Tale - all filmed versions of theatrical productions.
The BBC Shakespeare from late 70s & early 80s was a very many xed bag, ranging from the unwatchable (eg Romeo & Juliet) to the very good (eg Othello). The highlight of that series was, for me, the three Henry VI plays & Richard III, presented as a tetralogy. Nowadays, I think of it as a trilogy: the play now known as Henry VI Part One isn’t frankly a very good play, & I’d be surprised if Shakespeare had much to do with it. The other three plays form a trilogy, and the first two plays of this trilogy (ie Henry VI Parts 2 & 3) are shockingly undervalued. Richard III is acclaimed as a masterpiece, of course, and deservedly so, but I always feel it is more powerful when seen as a culmination of a series rather than as a standalone. All four plays are superbly done in the BBC series: Jane Howell’s direction is tremendously imaginative, and the ensemble cast could hardly be bettered. Ron Cook takes the spotlight as Richard III, of course, in the last play of the series, and he is magnificent.
Among other things, these productions demonstrate how well even the less well-known plays in the canon can work in performance if the text is respected.
Yeah I have to watch those, I've been saving them.
DeleteAnd since we’re making lists, here’s my Top 10 for today
ReplyDelete1. King Lear
2. Antony & Cleopatra
3. Twelfth Night
4. Henry IV part 2
5. The Winter’s Tale
6. Henry IV part 1
7. A Midsummer Night’s Dream
8. Hamlet
9. Othello
10. Love’s Labour’s Lost
What about your lists of favourite/ greatest characters? I want your lists too.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite Shakespeare "unit" consists of the four plays Richard II, Henry IV, 1, 2 and Henry V. It's like a single epic examination of the state of being a king -- bad king, good king, conflicted king, king-in-waiting. I love all four plays individually (Falstaff!), but to me they are more than the sum of their parties.
ReplyDeleteTop ten individual plays (today):
1. King Lear
2. Othello
3. As You Like It
4. Midsummer Night's Dream
5. Merchant of Venice
6. The Tempest
7. Measure for Measure
8. Hamlet
9. Richard II
10. Henry IV, part 1
I agree, I do love that tetralogy, at least the first 3 plays.
DeleteWhich plays obsess/ haunt you the most?
I think the plays that obsess/haunt me the most are the ones that seem to pose questions without answers, or that present elusive or even contradictory pictures of humanity or the human condition -- plays like King Lear, Merchant of Venice, Othello, Measure for Measure, Richard II, the Tempest but many plays too.
DeleteFor example, in King Lear, I can never quite account for the hatred of Goneril and Regan for Lear. I get not loving this foolish old tyrant. But from whence arises this truly volcanic level of hatred? And yet, it feels so true, so correct that they should feel that way. And what moral is the play expressing? How are we supposed to feel about the fact that all of the "good guys" are taking the part of the French invaders anyway? In "King John," for instance, Shakespeare seems to express a clear moral that you don't abandon your country to invaders, no matter how bad the king is. But in Lear, we get no such clear message; Albany, Cordelia, Kent, Edgar, and Lear himself all welcome what is essentially a foreign invasion. And finally, the stark existential bleakness of the play is its own separate message and is really unanswerable (Kurosawa's "Ran" really captures that feeling so well).
Or in Merchant of Venice, Shylock is indeed the villain, but it isn't simply our modern sensibility that makes us feel empathetic with him -- Shakespeare very carefully puts us in his place, and then gives him a moral position that *should* have made any complacent Christian watching it in 1595 uncomfortable (Christians naturally want revenge for insults to their dignity -- why shouldn't a Jew?) I expect that aspect went over their heads mostly -- and yet it is there, isn't it?
Or Measure for Measure -- are we supposed to admire Isabella for her chaste fortitude or feel repulsed by it, as we are more or less repulsed by every other character in the play? Is she an icy prude who won't deign to save her brother, or a principled and courageous woman who will not give in to force? How about both?
Or Midsummer Nights Dream, an insanely silly plot that presents a perfect (and very deliberate) allegory for the strangeness that is love, including its apparent total captivation of the will; a perfect comic counterpart to Romeo and Juliet, which explores the same issues from the side of tragedy. As if driving this home, in quiet interludes the play offers deep, almost Socratic, insights into the nature of love -- again enigmatically, as in Helena's observation that "Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind" or Theseus's comparison of lovers and madmen.
Finally, there's the Tempest. I have no idea how this play even works (and I know some people feel it doesn't work), since it has such a strange plot. But I feel it does work, and so beautifully. What an amazing, strange, and again elusive meditation on the creative process, on the magic involved in creating art.
Just a few examples. I could go on and on.
I agree, I think Ran is the best Shakespeare film because it captures that.
DeleteAlso agree about Shylock. I dislike some people's idea that writers in the past didn't really mean something, we just see it because of our modern sensibilities: Shakespeare did put those words in there and get us to empathise with Shylock, not just the "Hath not a Jew hands?" speech but also the "I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys" moment. I have read anti-Semitic writers. I have read The Jew of Malta. Some people just think that people in the past were all backward and bigoted.
I love The Merchant of Venice. The characters are all unlikable though, especially Shylock's daughter.
Measure for Measure is the play that puzzles me more, partly because I'm not sure how Shakespeare intended to view Isabella (I don't like her), but more importantly because the last two acts and the ending raise lots of questions. But I love the play because of the idea about cant (I think Isabella and Angelo are two sides of the same coin), and because of the "Could great men thunder" speech.
A Midsummer Night's Dream doesn't puzzle me, but As You Like It does, and I just don't know what to do with the evaporation of evil in it. It is strange.
I enjoyed perusing your lists, so here are mine. As always, lots to debate ;). 1SusyQ
ReplyDeleteMy Shakespeare Top 12
Hamlet
King Lear
As You Like It
Henry IV Part 1
The Tempest
Anthony and Cleopatra
MacBeth
Richard II
The Winter’s Tale
Julius Caesar
Love’s Labor Lost
Twelfth Night
Favorite Male Characters
Hamlet
Falstaff
Prospero
The Fool
Edmund
Favorite Female Characters
Cordelia
Rosalind
Lady MacBeth
Paulina
The Three Witches
Favorite non-speaking character — the bear
Favorite Shakespeare movies —
Hamlet (Andrew Scott) (2018) Also, Olivier (1948)
Twelfth Night (Trevor Nunn production)(1996)
Favorite books about Shakespeare —
Popular biography:
William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life, S. Schoenbaum
Shakespeare: The Biography, Peter Ackroyd
1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, James Shapiro
The Lodger Shakespeare: His Life on Silver Street, Charles Nicholl
Criticism:
Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays, William Hazlitt
Northrop Frye on Shakespeare, Northrop Frye
Reference:
Oxford Shakespeare Glossary, Ed. C. T. Onions
Favorite Movie about Shakespeare — Shakespeare in Love (1998)
Favorite novel about Shakespeare — Mistress Malapert, Sally Watson (children’s book)
For the lists of characters, I have two different lists because one is for characters I like as people. Your lists are clearly different.
DeleteSpeaking of the witches, I can't remember if you've seen the Coen Macbeth?
You have to watch Kenneth Branagh's Twelfth Night.
I've read Hazlitt on Shakespeare, but not Northrop Frye. I should, but want to prioritise Bradley.
Have you seen my criticism of James Shapiro?
It’s true I wouldn’t want to spend time with either Lady MacBeth or the three witches; however, I love them as characters, so make of that what you will.
ReplyDeleteI did see the Coen MacBeth. He did a good job with the witches/witch, I thought, conveying menace and a creepy, other worldly air. For some reason, I’ve probably seen more performances of MacBeth than any other play except Hamlet.
Bradley is excellent. I’m a fan of his Shakespearean Tragedy. Frye is well worth reading, too ;).
We may have to agree to disagree over Branagh and Shapiro
I think the disagreement about Branagh is fine, but my problem with Shapiro isn't about taste or preference or even personal opinion, but about facts. He gets lots of things wrong, and I'm very concerned about the things I don't know about.
DeleteI'm not even sure if including his authorship book here was the right decision.
I prefer reading well edited books, of course, but Shapiro is not the first author (or reviewer) I’ve read who drops the ball on the details of the play or book in question. I’d definitely rather know that he sometimes errs on the details. But 1599 is a book where the thesis was so interesting and even inspiring that I can forgive some errors in the details. Maybe if I were less familiar with the plays, say a student relying on him for a paper, his errors would be more serious in their impact.
DeleteThe trouble is that, the things I knew he got wrong cast doubt on all the "facts" he wrote about.
DeleteAnd it bothers me that no reviewer/ professional writer mentions these errors.
I don’t mean to minimize the importance of accuracy, but I don’t think getting a few details wrong necessarily invalidates the rest of the book. Now I’d probably think differently if the details involved major points in his thesis or brain surgery instead of life and politics in London in 1599. YMMV
ReplyDeleteThe error I pointed out was in 1606, and that one to me was serious enough because he used the "fact" to argue that Shakespeare was taking part in a debate, through King Lear, but it wasn't a fact. It's not a minor error like who gets carried off dead drunk in Antony and Cleopatra.
DeleteAnd errors like when Lear meets Gloucester may not affect the overall thesis, but that is something everyone who has read or watched King Lear would know, thus it shows a carelessness in James Shapiro that does make me wonder what else he's careless about.
I bet that if I bother to pick up 1599, I would find errors. And that's just me, who know nothing. An actual historian or scholar would see lots of others, and who knows, some of those errors may undermine the entire thesis, whatever it is.
No time to hit every category, but I love Anthony Burgess' novel about Shakespeare, Nothing Like the Sun, and I have a fondness for Orson Wells' three Shakespeare Films, MacBeth, Othello, and Chimes at Midnight, especially Micheal MacLiammor's performance as Iago in the Othello film. (His journal of the chaotic filming of that movie, Put Money in Thy Purse, is delightful.)
ReplyDeleteIf you have time, come back later and make some lists, that would be fun haha.
DeleteI haven't seen Welles's Othello and Chimes at Midnight. Probably won't see the former, but the latter does interest me.
I wish he had cast Vivien Leigh as Lady Macbeth.
Oh, and I should have remembered my favorite work of Shakespeare criticism, Harley Granville-Barker's Prefaces to Shakespeare. (Though the title is a trifle deceptive - the "preface" to Hamlet is 250 pages long!)
DeleteI believe Wells wanted to use Agnes Moorehead as Lady MacBeth, but she had other commitments. He also wanted to cast Everet Sloane as Iago, but that didn't work out either.
Ah.
DeleteI read that he wanted Vivien Leigh for Lady Macbeth but didn't ask her, because he thought Laurence Olivier wouldn't let her.
I'm not going to choose favorite plays (I've read all of them, many of them multiple times) or characters, but I did want to recommend S. L. Bethell's little book Shakespeare and the Popular Dramatic Tradition, which is really helpful for getting one to read Shakespeare right. Bethell reminds us about stage conventions and theater realities of Shakespeare's day. His book is especially recommended to anyone who us used to Shakespeare as filmed for TV and movies.
ReplyDeleteDale nelson
Thank you.
DeleteI see that my local libraries don't have it. British Library does, but I can't take books out of that library. Hmmm.