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My ranking of every Shakespeare play
111–120 of 179 posts
Re: My ranking of every Shakespeare play
#112Not trying to start any debate here with Shakespeare fans, just intend this as a supportive word for those of us who just don’t enjoy Shakespeare - Voltaire declared Hamlet a ‘vulgar and barbarous play’ and that ‘one would take this work to be the fruit of the inspiration of a drunken savage’ - George Bernard Shaw: ’. “There is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I despise so entirely as I despise Shak…
George Bernard Shaw, as the kids say, said a lot of things. He probably meant some of them, too.
But what is most important is that he was correct about vanishingly few of them.
Re: My ranking of every Shakespeare play
#113Anyone who likes Shakespeare--or anyone who wants to like it--should watch this marvelous BBC Series called "Playing Shakespeare": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2VnxiW3oqk&list=PLboSQWmG70... It's produced by the Royal Shakespeare company and is comprised simply of some of the greatest shakeasperean actors (Judi Dench, Ian McKellan, David Suchet, Patrick Stewart) talking about different elements of how to act shak…
What an amazing series. My favorite bit has to be the Love's Labor's Lost bit at the top of ep. 3, followed by an excerpt from A Bit of Fry and Laurie that makes a joke at the expense of folks like John Barton that he's able to laugh along with.
There's so much about the language of Shakespeare that needs to be vocalized and heard to understand. It took me way too long to realize that not all of his iambic pentameter was "correct' rhythmically, and that those variances _meant_ something. Watching and hearing these actors work through their scenes (and sometimes having their work adjusted live!) was truly eye-opening as to how the language of Shakespeare, arcane though it is, was deliberate, purposeful and useful.
Re: My ranking of every Shakespeare play
#114Loved this. But would like numbers next to the plays. Since it is a ranking.
Ok. let titles = document.getElementsByTagName('h3') for(let i = titles.length; i > 0; i--) { titles[i-1].textContent = i + ' ' + titles[i-1].textContent }
getElementsByTagName('h3')
How do you know all 'h3' is a play title?
Re: My ranking of every Shakespeare play
#115As a kid having to read Shakespeare what was lost on me, because of the language, was the language. Will worked hard to turn a phrase. "Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once." "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." "The very substance of the amb…
Shakespeare has such influence that’s it’s almost more correct to say he wrote English than that he wrote in English.
150+ words are said to be coined by him
Re: My ranking of every Shakespeare play
#116Are there any links to watch/listen to all of the Shakespearean plays?
Re: My ranking of every Shakespeare play
#117This is great, thanks. For anyone who might take a recommendation, the 1993 "Much Ado" is, indeed, excellent. It's a play filled with joie de vivre and the movie reflects that. Featuring an unexpected Don John. Then the 2012 Much Ado is one of the better things Joss Whedon did.
Whedon's much ado is what got me interested in shakespeare as an adult. I liked how it let the funny parts still be funny but the dramatic parts were allowed to be serious and not played for a laugh.
Re: My ranking of every Shakespeare play
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Shakespeare has such influence that’s it’s almost more correct to say he wrote English than that he wrote in English.
150+ words are said to be coined by him
In fairness, I think a lot of that is him writing in a vernacular English that wouldn't have been recorded much in official documents or other writings. So he probably didn't coin it so much as save it for posterity. Otherwise his plays would have been like those fantasy novels whether the author gets slightly too excited about using their made up words for everything.
Re: My ranking of every Shakespeare play
#119Probably the best thing I have ever seen on the stage is a production of a slightly abridged version of Henry VI. A review of that production is here: https://leonrubin.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/henryvi_paper.... .
I hardly ever hear anyone talk about these history plays but some of them really are incredibly good as that review indicates. Maybe seeing a production rather than just reading them on the page helps (this version was also shortened but honestly it was so good that I suspect if they'd just performed the entire thing I would have still loved it).
Re: My ranking of every Shakespeare play
#120I remember the teacher talking up Romeo and Juliet and being fairly unimpressed. But when I read King Lear, I was electrified- that scene with the king ranging around in the field while the fool says smart things is really good IMHO. I saw the Scottish Play put on by my high school theater and it was also great. Over time I've come to appreciate his fragments: "But soft! what light through yonder window breaks? Tis t…
I had a similar experience. Schools seem absolutely determined to force the most boring parts of Shakespeare on us, then years later when I was almost done with school I ran across Much Ado About Nothing - and that was a good one. I liked that one. That should have been one of the ones used to introduce us to him.
I had Much Ado as one of my first introductions, and I remember it being fun, but not really getting it at the time. I think everyone's first Shakespeare play is hard going, it's not until you get the rhythm of them and start seeing them live that they make more sense.
And Much Ado is a particularly mean one because so much of it is innuendo that you need a guide for, and there's nothing the kills jokes faster than a guide explaining them. I'd love to see a modern translation of Much Ado, but done with the aim of really translating joke for joke, replacing some of the puns that don't work any more with modern versions, making the double entendre a bit more modern, etc.