Favorite Shakespeare play and why

Personally my favorite is Julius Caesar. The scene where Mark Antony is speaking at Caesar's funeral is incredibly moving. Also I'm very interested in Roman history.

MacBeth.

'Out, out, brief candle...' puts things into perspective nicely.

Originally posted by targeting
Personally my favorite is Julius Caesar. The scene where Mark Antony is speaking at Caesar's funeral is incredibly moving. Also I'm very interested in Roman history.

I like 'Antony and Cleopatra'

My favourite quote is - There's beggary in the love that can be reckoned. (1.1.15)

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They are all way over rated if you ask me.
Wasn’t he just a mainstream pawn in a sense? Just making a product that fits to its market..
The way people talk about him reminds me of the Beatles, it’s really annoying.
I would love to see some of the non mainstream plays from that era.

Originally posted by TheCommentator
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They are all way over rated if you ask me.
Wasn’t he just a mainstream pawn in a sense? Just making a product that fits to its market..
The way people talk about him reminds me of the Beatles, it’s really annoying.
I would love to see some of the non mainstream plays from that era.

He had an ego thats for sure.You can see it in the sonnets.

When you read his sonnets you see he was pretty jealous of the 'Rival Poet'

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Dear targeting,

Either "Taming of the Shrew" or "The Tempest" for me. I like his comedies.

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I've never been a huge fan of his comedies. It's a preference thing I guess. I'm a big fan of tragedies.

MacBeth. "By the twitching of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes."

I love that line, and the whole play is a rare treat of goodness.

Originally posted by TheCommentator
reply to post by targeting

 

They are all way over rated if you ask me.
Wasn’t he just a mainstream pawn in a sense? Just making a product that fits to its market..
The way people talk about him reminds me of the Beatles, it’s really annoying.
I would love to see some of the non mainstream plays from that era.

I agree in a sense I mean he did hang out with some of the greatest writers of the time such as Francis bacon and it was even proposed that some of his works where not his but actually other peoples who just used his name

"The Tempest" - my family took me to an amazing production of this in an outdoor amphitheatre, put on by Antioch College, in Yellow Springs, Ohio, when I was probably ten or eleven years old. Years later, when I was a theatre student at Wright State, in Dayton, I taught a drama class at the community center in Yellow Springs, and we found that Antioch College had declined, and that the old amphitheatre was in disrepair and no longer used, but those memories remain. Seeing "The Tempest" done "in the round", outdoors, with fall setting in and the temperature getting nippy, with fire and stars and all kinds of atmosphere... It was an experience I will never forget.

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Perhaps I was just making much ado about nothing.

Macbeth for me too.
It's the darkest of Shakespeare's plays in my opinion, and contains such an absolute wealth of imagery... which I think scholars haven't even begun to delve into.

I wrote my honours thesis on "Celtic Macbeth: Celtic history and culture in Shakespeare's Greatest Tragedy"...

and when you look at the play through a Celtic viewpoint (rather than through a Jacobean viewpoint, or an Elizabethan viewpoint), the interpretation and the conclusions drawn about Macbeth himself are entirely different.

I could rave on for ages, but I'll spare you

The Taming of the Shrew. Petruchio is the man

reply to post by Awen24


Now I am definitely going to have to re-read "Macbeth" considering the Celtic perspective. Thank you!!!

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Explanation: S&F!

OL's favorite is ...

The Merchant of Venice [wiki]

and here is why ... [quote is from the wiki and not from the play ok]

Shylock and the antisemitism debate:

The play is frequently staged today, but is potentially troubling to modern audiences due to its central themes, which can easily appear antisemitic. Critics today still continue to argue over the play's stance on antisemitism.

During Shakespeare's day, money lending was a very common occupation among Jews. This was due to Christians staying out of the profession due to their belief at that time that usury is a sin and the fact that it was one of the few professions available to Jews in medieval Europe, who were prohibited by law from most professions.

Shylocks/Shakespears profound poetry ... [quote is from the play ok.]

Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.

—Act III, scene I

Script text: The Merchant of Venice (by William Shakespear) [william-shakespeare.info]

Personal Disclosure: I tend to focus in on Tubal and his 3000 ducats that he lends Shylock to lend to Antonio in the deal for a 'pound of flesh' and how when Shylock becomes a christian that deal would of become null and void. And I have always wondered how that untold story might have played out if Shakespear had written about that?

P.S. I believe Shylock could have tried to cut out his 'pound of flesh' without 'spilling a single drop of christian blood' by using a white hot knife and the medical procedure for cauterization etc. although I also believe that he would fail at cutting out exactly 'one pound' of human flesh from Antonio's heart, unless his hand was truly guided by the hand of god! (but thats another story )

I think Taming of the Shrew is funny as hell but I've gotta go with MacBeth. Dark. Murder, insanity, etc. Whoa, good read.

Twelfth Night (Or What You Will)

That one has adventure, romance, comedy, drama, intrigue etc. It has everything. I just love the dialogue and the comedy of errors that has a brother and sister being courted by the same woman!

Second fave comedy is Much Ado (About Nothing). The witty banter between Beatrice and Benedick absolutely makes the story, though I can't really stand how meek Hero is or how much of a pushover Claudio is.

For the dramatic, side, Hamlet and then MacBeth. Dark, sinister, crazy, and just fun to get lost in.

I have to go with Julius Caesar. I was never big on Shakespeare or theater but that one stuck out to me in my Sophomore year of highschool English. I always enjoyed acting out the parts in class. Oh, and I helped some friends with a highschool film project where they made a modern day version of it. I got to be Brutus

Shakespeare does Tragedy best...

Hamlet
Othello
Macbeth

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targeting,
My favorite is Macbeth. I have always loved Macbeth since we read and watched the play in school. I recently reread it again at 20 and still can't put it down once I've picked it up. The witches, Hekate, the murder, Banquo. They all capture my attention time and again. I also love how he wrote his books, sometimes I dream we spoke this way

I also like A Mid Summer Nights Dream!!
Cool post. Love everyone opinion. But to the haters, I believe if you read more of his work you would grow to love it.
Thanks for posting this thread!