Anyone into Shakespeare as Much as Me!

[RJ2013]

I love Shakespeare! Which one is your favorite and why? Be detailed! I want to know cause I haven't read all his plays and you could really open my eyes to his other work. By the way, if you want to recommend any classic literature you can too!

I am a huge bookworm!!!!

[Mahuta ♥]

I am not in love with Shakespeare, but I like his plays.

Romeo and Juliet: I like the story, love the speech used. I love the prologue and the final paragraph.

I love this part too:

""Romeo

If I profane with my unworthiest hand

This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:

My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand

To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

Juliet

Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,

Which mannerly devotion shows in this;

For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,

And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.""

Macbeth, I didnt like it as much as I did R&J..but it wasnt bad.

[Chriso]

I love Shakespeare! Which one is your favorite and why? Be detailed! I want to know cause I haven't read all his plays and you could really open my eyes to his other work. By the way, if you want to recommend any classic literature you can too!

I am a huge bookworm!!!!

Hey! I am learning to like Shakespeare more and more.

I just finished reading Hamlet for HL English year 2, and I loved it! It seems to me that Shakespeare has the ability to turn some of the most simple things into fascinating stories/dramas. One thing that I especially appreciate about Shakespeare is his deep understanding of human nature, which is clearly apparent in his plays. Other Shakespeare plays that I have read include Romeo & Juliet and Love's Labor's Lost.

As for classic literature, I would recommend The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I enjoyed reading it last year.

[JustAnotherAsian]

I cant stand this crap. This guy has been dead for hundreds of years, his writing is barely understandable in modern english. Why study this thing if you have to freaking translate every line.

Honestly this is worse than Tok

[Ray]

The first Shakespeare play I studied was Macbeth and I didn't find it too bad although some parts were a little confusing. I read King Lear on my own and liked that much better, it's easy, has a plot, and interesting. (how often do you get to have a king that goes crazy?)

[maerad]

I love his plot concepts, and how there are so many recurring themes in his works, and so they all intertwine in an odd way. My favourite is Twelfth Night. It's just hilarious.

[Antiares]

I loved Titus Andronicus because of its trashiness.

[Daedalus]

Lol I love how somebody who has barely had any formal training in literature whatsoever can go like "oh, Macbeth was okay, not too bad" ... please wake up. Shakespeare is the master of the English language, unsurpassed in skill and wit for five centuries. Whatever opinion you care to have is completely irrelevant by comparison, and any negative opinion you care to share is just an embaressment to yourself. Sure say you didn't like it but don't presume to qualify Shakespeare's writing until you've actually read any one of his plays or sonnets and understood half of it.

[wombat123]

Really? I find Shakespeare hard to appreciate, since I find it difficult to understand Elizabethan English. In fact, a lot of the times I rely on the teacher's verbal summaries of the passage we just read in class rather than paying attention to each word or sentence. Maybe it's because I'm not deep or knowledgeable enough to understand the literature though.

[silent maverick]

MERCHANT OF VENICE FTW!!!

Studied the Merchant of Venice for English A1 HL. Stunned by the brilliance of Shakespeare. Three main themes are always present throughout the play and how our man William keeps it up is a thing of beuty. they are a follows:

-Shylock being presented as a mercenary purely after persoal gain

-Patriarchal Society

-True love of the person is more important than the outside appearance.

Use these in any test and u r guaranteed high marks!!!

[fan]

I actually love Merchant of Venice.

Best part:

Act 3 scene 1

"I am a Jew. 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, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled 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."

Edited January 21, 2011 by fan

[Starryz1221c]

I love Shakespeare, my favorite is Macbeth and The Tempest. I don't really like Othello, and unfortunately my teacher decided to do Othello for one of the IB texts.

[Proletariat]

Honestly? I'm impartial to the guy.

Some of his stuff is truly monumental, masterpieces: Much Ado, Midsummer, Merchant, Hamlet.

Some of his stuff's a bit lacking: Othello.

And some of his stuff's just utterly horrible, trashy, of no particular value other than as an example of "what not to do": Titus Andronicus, Taming of the Shrew.

[Incorruptible]

Considering I've only read A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo & Juliet, and Macbeth for school--Macbeth being my favourite of the three--I can't really add anything of substance to this debate. I can say, though, that even though I've only read them because they're mandatory, I recognise that Shakespeare's writing is quite ingenius; the way he brings the entire storyline of Macbeth together is brilliant, especially with the four apparitions and how even their appearances fit in with the witches' predictions. He uses the most beautiful words, so very "quotable."

[fan]

Have any of you read hamlet and merchant of Venice? I can of find merchant of Venice really nice. Especially the plot! well thought out

[kim luffy]

i really like shakespeare. I like deciphering what it means since the language used is quite hard to get. my fav would be macbeth and midsummer night dream

[Arrowhead]

I love Shakespeare, my Mum did her dissertation on Shakespearean plays so I've grown up with Shakespearean plays' re-enactments and tellings across towns and cities that we would always go for. I even associated my EE to Shakespeare.

My favourites have to be Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and The Merchant of Venice. As you can see, I particularly enjoyed his comedies over his tragedies and historical fictions.

I wouldn't say there are parts of it that I particularly liked, it's more about the ethereal, haunting, Shakespearean quality in his work that has stood the test of time. What I love about Shakespeare is that it can (and continues to be) reinvented in different forms. Whether it's seeing Midsummer being performed as an opera in London or when I was part of the cast of Much Ado (I played Leonato) and Twelfth Night (I played Antonio) for the Fall Productions of the Theatre department. I love how his work can be set in any time and in any place and still have that magic and flair about it. Whether we walk around in robes and attire of the Elizabethan times or reinvent the play to be in the 1960s and wear top hats, fedoras, trousers, and suspenders, it always works out and is always appreciated. What most people forget is that Shakespeare was not an author, he was a playwright. Of course you cannot appreciate the full effect of his work because you're reading it, you need to see it happen in front of your eyes to truly understand why he is so revered even in modern times.

It doesn't matter if you've studied a Shakespearean play, try catching a performance at a local theatre of Hamlet or Macbeth and see the magic before your very eyes, then you will really understand.

Edited August 31, 2011 by Arrowhead

[Hannah.M]

Personally, my favourites are Richard II and King Lear. For too many reasons to list. Richard II has one of my favourite monologues of all time, where he wakes up from a nightmare and undergoes a huge but, fairly realistic (as far as Shakespeare goes) transition and realization.

[S3THST4]

I LOVE everything I've read by Shakespeare. I've only read a few, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet. Macbeth is the best I've read so far, I love it. I'm reading it for fun, though it's a required reading next year for HL English A1. Also, I've started Les Miserables, and I like it. You should definitely read that.

[ShootingStars]

Romeo and Juliet!

I've also read Merchant of Venice, which I really really enjoyed - so definitely look into it. And then when I visited Venice, I felt all the memories of Merchant of Venice coming back to me!

Ooh and I've heard Julius Caesar is a must-read too.

What do you love most about Shakespeare? I love the depth in the words and the portrayal of characters, personally.