Top 5 Shakespeare Plays
1) Macbeth
2) Hamlet
3) Much Ado About Nothing
4) Romeo and Juliet
5) Henry V
Runners up: A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, Othello, The Merchant of Venice, and The Tempest.
Posted on January 16, 2007, in Books, Top 5s. Bookmark the permalink. 71 Comments.
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I agree with the list, with exception of #5. When in Stratford U-A, the play of the day was Henry V, and I have never been so dismally disappointed. Sitting through it was an ordeal…
I would gladly replace it with any of your runners-up, though!
Rusty, it is clear you are not coming at this from the traditional English major POV. Macbeth is just not the best of the Bard. Hamlet is No.1. Much Ado About Nothing is a lightweight, too.
1. Hamlet
2. The Merchant of Venice
3. King Lear
4. Othello
5. A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
The mere fact that you don’t have Macbeth in your top five shows your extravagant ignorance Steve. Hamlet may be number one, that’s debatable, but shunning Macbeth completely and calling Much Ado a lightweight is unconscionable.
Rusty, Much Ado is a lightweight. It’s a comedy, not a very well-structured one at that. I mean, if you are talking about top 5 shakespeare films, maybe then you’d have an argument.
How does excluding Macbeth show my “extravagant ignorance?” Enlighten me.
1. Strange Brew
2. Forbidden Planet
3. My Own Private Idaho
4. The Lion King
5. 10 Thinks I Hate About You
Honorable mention: West Side Story
Hamlet is #1.
Personally, I like Henry the V … but it helps to read/see the plays that lead up to it. Richard II, Henry IV parts one and two. Otherwise, you really don’t get a sense of the process by which Prince Hal becomes King Henry V.
ARJ, I’d like to get a good long list of Shakespeare adaptations. 10 Things I Hate About You is a great show.
Yes, because Shakespeare was writing especially for those who pour over his work and declare themselves English majors.
Btw, SG, I was being sarcastic. I don’t really think that you’re ignorant. Just snobbish.
I think it’s harder to pull off good comedy than good drama, so I don’t think being “lightweight” is such a bad thing. But I’d put Taming of the Shrew above Much Ado About Nothing, which is pretty good, but not much better than Comedy of Errors.
Amen to King Lear. I might order my list like this (subject to revision, upon further reflection):
1. Hamlet
2. King Lear
3. Midsummer Night’s Dream
4. Macbeth
5. Taming of the Shrew
1. Lear
2. Hamlet
3. MacBeth
4. Henry V.
5. Julius Caesar
(Sorry, I just never cared for any of the comedies)
I liked the list of best non-Shakespearean Shakespeare that someone gave as well.
1. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Hamlet)
2. Ran (King Lear)
3. Strange Brew (Hamlet)
3. Forbidden Planet (The Tempest)
4. Throne of Blood (MacBeth)
5. Lion King (Hamlet)
Obviously Hamlet is pretty influential.
Actually I’ll take that back. I did see a version of the Merry Wives of Windsor that was pretty funny. But I’ve seen way too many Twelfth Night renditions which always come off to me as a bad and long episode of Three’s Company. Taming of the Shrew can be good. There was a version of it that was done on Moonlighting way back in the 80′s I vaguely recall thinking was well done. But I was young enough at the time that I don’t know if I’d still think that.
Although I’m not an English major, I have read all the plays except King John, Titus Andronicus, and Timon of Athens. It’s hardly extravagant ignorance to call Much Ado lightweight, especially in comparison to most of the others. I can recognize Hamlet’s greatness, but it has never been one of my favorites.
These are the ones I read over and over:
1. King Lear
2. Henry IV, part 1
3. Measure for Measure
4. Twelfth Night
5. As You Like It
1. Hamlet
2. Macbeth
3. Taming of the Shrew
4. Julius Caesar
5. Midsummer Night’s Dream
Has anyone seen Scotland, PA ? Excellent version of Macbeth set in a fast food joint in the 70′s with Christopher Walken as MacDuff. Brilliant.
Taming is my personal favorite. I saw a very interesting staging with an all female cast one summer. In that rendition it was a lot less testostrone v. estrogen and a lot more about meeting your match and maintaining your sense of self. It was slightly edited for time, but nothing else was changed.
The Flying Karamazov Brothers (http://www.fkb.com/index.html) used to do productions of the identity comedies (Much Ado, As You Like, 12th night) that were very entertaining, if not absolutely accurate.
I’m all about King Lear and The Tempest.
This time, I think Rusty got it about right. I’d probably substitute “Taming of the Shrew” for “Much Ado About Nothing,” and maybe “The Tempest” or “King Lear” for “Henry V,” but I can probably live with his choices.
SG, you’re completely wrong about “MacBeth.”
“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…”
Yeah Rusty — I like your list too (though I don’t think I’d have Much Ado at #3)
I agree it’s a good list, although I’m profoundly irritated by Romeo and Juliet. Whenever I read it or see it, I find myself wishing they’d have killed themselves sooner and put us all out of their misery.
I am so in for it when my kids hit the teen years.
And I’m with Super-G. I’d take Othello over Macbeth any day.
I don’t know if that’s my literary training or not. I just find Macbeth kind of boring. He’s not a tragic hero for me.
There are some plays I have to gauge a little more. King Lear and Othello are among them. I know these are hugely important plays, but the overall stories seem to impact me less than Hamlet, Macbeth and some of the history plays. Maybe I just need to see the different versions than the ones I’m acquainted with.
Wow. Not the list I would have made. So, here’s my dogmatic, totally unjustifiable set of comments.
Macbeth is okay, but kinda melodramatic and driven by mystical hokum for my taste. Romeo and Juliet is a flawed play, broken by the fact that it’s basically a comedy until more than halfway through and that Shakespeare didn’t seem to see the need to have characters who could sustain tragedy for the climax to work. (If it hadn’t been for all the opposition, do you think Romeo would have stayed faithful to Juliet? I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count.)
Much Ado About Nothing is fun, but it’s not half of The Tempest, I’m afraid. The Tempest has the human comedy of Much Ado mixed with a poetic reflection on the nature of creation and creativity that lifts it far above a comedy of manners like Much Ado. Finally, Henry V is terribly overrated these days because (a) it has one really great speech and (b) there was an exceptionally good film adaptation. But setting aside your memories of KB striding all over the place, and apart from the St. Crispin’s Day thing, think about the rest of the script. Good, certainly, but not really great, memorable language.
Finally, King Lear!!! By such a wide margin, Shakespeare’s best play. It encompasses the themes of Hamlet with beautiful imagery and the most powerful family relations in all of Shakespeare’s work.
Can I conclude by committing the heresy of noting that Shakespeare is overrated, especially by Mormons? Definitely a good playwright. But not, by any stretch of the imagination, the definitive writer in the English language.
RT, you’re mistaken in your last sentence. Really — Shakespeare is, by a looonnnnnngggg shot, the most famous, widely-read, widely admired, researched, venerated and accomplished writer in the history of the English language. If that doesn’t make him definitive, then you are using the word in a different sense than we typically do.
I think there’s a general consensus that Shakespeare is the greatest writer in English. I can’t even begin to think who else would be considered for that distinction.
I don’t think Shakespeare is overrated at all. He’s certainly the best writer ever in the English language and probably the best playwright the world has ever seen.
Greg (#22), just wait until I finish my novel.
Mormons? I know of no Mormons here.
I’m not qualified to say whether or not his is the definitive writer in the English language, but a large part of Shakespeare’s deserved place in the canon of world literature is his influence on other national literatures — it was and continues to be immense.
I can’t think of a non-religious or philosophical writer who has been as influential in translation as Shakespeare.
BTD Greg:
I think you could make a case for Milton over Shakespeare.
But really, this whole impetus to use words like “best” just doesn’t fit, imo — as with athletes, I think the formulation should more be “best of his/her era at *** which had *** impact on *** eras in *** way.”
Supergenius, BTD Greg, and danithew, I’m going to flippantly remark that you’re proving my point!
Shakespeare’s a perfect icon, and a very good writer. But a lot of his reputation at this point has to do with his iconic status and not his words. People can feel good about themselves — I’m doing something noble and productive — when they read Shakespeare, so they do. And this creates a market for Shakespeare research, etc. So a lot more people end up reading Shakespeare than Milton, Jonson, etc. And these people repeat the well-worn mantra that Shakespeare is the greatest writer in the English language — an easy claim to make when you’ve never read his major competitors.
William Morris #27, I agree on both counts — Milton is excellent and doesn’t have the popular reputation he deserves, and your critique of “best” is clear and coherent. My iconoclastic comment above revolves around the idea that Shakespeare gets a lot more attention than other writers who have produced works that are roughly as influential as some of Shakespeare’s plays, and incidentally are excellent reads.
Great points, RT.
And it’s not just Shakespeare research. Or rather because of the perpetuation of the Shakespeaere meme, his plays become the entry point for exposing highbrow theater (and to a lesser extent film) to kids in high school and college.
And because those are the plays you are exposed to during your formative years, if you do become a middle-class consumer of middlebrow* culture, chances are you are going to go for the Shakespeare.
I’m not saying there’s not some great stuff there. I can’t imagine doing without King Lear or The Tempest.
But the cultural market skews things.
* Nothing wrong with middlebrow culture. In fact, I’ve been thinking of making a t-shirt that reads “Middlebrow Pride.” And I would wear it fairly un-ironically.
RT,
Come on man. People say that he’s the greatest for a reason. You can’t contribute it all to inertia.
And who the hell is Jonson?
Ben Jonson
And the fact that you have to ask is proof that Shakespeare’s popularity has come at a cost.
Damn. I knew the joke wasn’t obvious enough.
RT. Blasphemy. Shakespeare is, if anything, underrated because just no one else comes close. Milton is good, but nowhere near as great (nor do we have as much good writing). Ditto with most others.
But nice way to get the traffic going.
I will agree with Romeo and Juliet though. I can’t stand the story.
RT, I’ve read plenty of Milton and I don’t think Milton would begrudge Shakespeare his due. After all, he wrote a poem about him:
What needs my Shakespear for his honour’d Bones,
The labour of an age in piled Stones,
Or that his hallow’d reliques should be hid
Under a Star-ypointing Pyramid?
Dear son of memory, great heir of Fame,
What need’st thou such weak witnes of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thy self a live-long Monument.
For whilst to th’ shame of slow-endeavouring art,
Thy easie numbers flow, and that each heart
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalu’d Book,
Those Delphick lines with deep impression took,
Then thou our fancy of it self bereaving,
Dost make us Marble with too much conceaving;
And so Sepulcher’d in such pomp dost lie,
That Kings for such a Tomb would wish to die.
Rusty:
Apparently not. But it’s hilarious now that I get it.
Isn’t Ben’s legacy tainted by his use of steriods?
There Are Not Five But Seven! Shame on those who omitted any of the following (or who failed to list them in exactly this order):
1. King Lear
2. Hamlet
3. Twelfth Night
4. Merchant of Venice
5. Henry IV part 1
6. Romeo and Juliet
7. The Tempest
I’ll just say this: anyone can appreciate Shakespeare. You pretty much have to be a lit nerd (some of my best friends…) to sit down with a copy of “Paradise Lost” just for kicks. Should that matter? I think so.
As for Shakespeare as the best…
With William, I generally resist the superlative obsession when it comes to literature. There is better and worse literature, but “best” assumes the sort of commensurability necessary for head-to-head comparison and ranking. If such ranking were possible, it would have nothing to do with meaning or pleasure. It is would be all about cultural currency (i.e., Does this literature match my wine, cigars, and German-engineered sedan? Afterall, with me it’s only the best!).
On the other hand, if it was possible to crown a best, a most important, a most indispensable, Shakespeare would be it. I don’t think there is much of a discussion. Milton, Goethe, maybe Cervantes or Dante (there are other literary titans) simply cannot match the multiple-threat WS brings to bear.
Some examples: WS has unmatched range. He had a crushing sense of tragedy and a gut-busting sense of comedyâ€â€Âand they are often apparent in the same work. Also, WS regularly engaged in word-play so inventive it is sui generis. Multiple WS turns of phrase are now daily-use English idioms. Perhaps only the KJV has given us more verbal toys to play with. Likewise, WS invented multiple iconic characters who have been copied now a thousand times over. Few fully realized comedic characters do not owe some debt to Falstaff or Polonius. Finally, despite the dense language, Shakespeare holds up over time, through translation, across cultures, and so forth.
You just can’t say all of these things about the others, as good (and entirely underappreciated) as they are.
Of course, Shakespeare didn’t actually write all those plays. He was just the marketing genius front man.
I’ll just say this: anyone can appreciate Shakespeare. You pretty much have to be a lit nerd (some of my best friends…) to sit down with a copy of “Paradise Lost†just for kicks. Should that matter? I think so.
BTD Greg,
Exactly right my friend. You are exactly right.
SP Bailey,
I am shocked that you didn’t put Camoes in your list. For shame.
Wow. You Yanks know WS way better than even most educated Brits I know.
No, I just don’t agree. I think that, starting from zero with no prior exposure to (say) pre-20th-century English, much of Shakespeare is probably a lot harder to get anything out of than “Paradise Lost.” The sociological fact that a lot more people read Shakespeare than Milton involves a different point, and is at least in part due to tradition and the cultural market, rather than considerations involving accessibility or relative quality.
While in high school I imagined William Shakespeare as a didactic old fart. Then I saw Titus Andronicus. That play shocked me out of my mind and it was all over at that point – as I realized Shakespeare was as modern (and worldly) as anything I had ever read or seen. I’d still like to see Titus as a screenplay – but the violence may be too realistic in that kind of a format.
If Shakespeare even wrote that play (it seems to be a matter of debate for some) then I imagine he wrote it to catch the imagination of the crude masses (me included) and then wrote his loftier material later on, after he already had established his broader audience. Maybe I’m imagining wrong – but it seems like a possible strategy. It certainly worked on me.
S.P., you’ve got to acknowledge that range and the other specific praise-words you mention aren’t the only available considerations for evaluating greatness (an impossible task in any case, as you cogently argue). For instance, it seems that it might be coherent to argue that Book 1 of “Paradise Lost” reaches such transcendent heights that it more than counterbalances Shakespeare’s vast array of excellent, but (for the sake of argument) never quite as transcendent work — even though Milton lacks Shakespeare’s range, etc. Note that I’m not actually making this argument, just pointing out that the set of criteria available for judging literature is infinite and our freedom for assembling those criteria as we see fit is largely unbounded. Hence, there really can’t possibly be an indisputable best, because different priorities and ranking criteria would produce different conclusions.
Even the criterion of “most influential” can produce different ranks depending on how we measure influence. Jonson’s plays were more popular and more often-performed than Shakespeare’s during both of their lifetimes and for a substantial period afterwards. If we focused influence on that window, Jonson is a clear winner. If we consider indirect influence, including the influence of the writers that Jonson influenced during his peak period of popularity, it becomes profoundly difficult to rank Jonson and Shakespeare. If we instead restrict our focus to direct influence during the 19th and 20th centuries, Shakespeare is the clear winner.
It’s all a silly game in any case; my point is simply that we ought to unsettle our thinking about Shakespeare as the absolute monarch of literature.
RT, I think you’re refusing to recognize the obvious. The main appeal of Paradise Lost is Satan’s character (“it is better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven” or however it goes).
But, without trying to slam Milton too hard (since he’s a poetic deity himself) Shakespeare has a much broader array of characters, dialogue, wit, drama and romance than Milton.
It’s not merely tradition or literary fashion. Anyone who has spent extended time with Milton and Shakespeare should know better.
danithew, I disagree that I’m refusing to recognize the obvious. I will, instead, confess that I’m refusing to adhere to a powerful social convention.
If it makes you feel any better, RT, although I’d agree with the masses on WS in theory, I’d much rather cozy up to some Eugene O’Neill for a drama fix.
RT: I am not wholly opposed to the goal that apparently informs your iconoclasm. I have no personal stake in bardolatry as a powerful social convention. A post on the top five cannonical but unread works of literature (no Shakespeare allowed) would be good fun.
Still, I think we need a core cannon. A few texts that work as a common font of stories, characters, ideas, and images–a literary lingua franca. For that purpose, Shakespeare seems particularly well-suited. (But wait! Maybe I do have a stake in bardolatry! Maybe there is much to commend in the powerful social convention!)
Oooh- I like that idea- a post on the top five cannonical but unread works of literature… fun!
Danithew, there actually was an extremely violent film of Titus staring Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange from a few years ago. I didn’t see the whole thing and keep meaning to get back to it. It got very mixed reviews as being too daring for some but not daring enough in some ways. Interestingly it was done by the director of that amazingly popular Broadway adaptation of The Lion King.
Top three:
Hamlet
King Lear
Macbeth
The rest are more difficult to rank.
For those who doubt Macbeth–
What I find so astonishing about Macbeth is that we understand his motives so clearly. It’s a remarkable journey–intimately tracking a character as he becomes a murderer.
MacBeth has my favorite quotes. So it has to be in my top 5. Is this a dagger I see before me? Like Hamlet, a lot depends upon how you read MacBeth. Hamlet gets done wrong a lot because the whole parallel between the poising in the ear to kill the father and the whispering of the father into Hamlet’s ear aren’t seen as parallels.
Clark, I’ve eyed that Anthony Hopkins movie for some time with curiosity. If you ever end up seeing it, I’d like to read your review. And yes, I’m sacrificing you to any moral lions that are out there.
I see you have started another Top 5 list. Maybe at some point it would be good to start talking about best Shakespeare movies.
I’m still mad we don’t have a DVD for Branagh’s Hamlet, which I thought was excellent.
Danithew: did you see the Bill Murray Hamlet (2000)? (Sure, Ethan Hawke was servicable as Hamlet, but Bill Murray as Polonius was pure genius!)
S.P., I’m going to have to see that. Bill Murray twitching an eye is about all it takes to get me laughing.
I think KING LEAR is the most glaring omission in Rusty’s original list. I mean, it didn’t even merit runner-up status, that’s pretty appalling.
For my money MACBETH is definitely Top 5 worthy.
I also think those that doubt Shakespeare’s brilliance and well-deserved stature have failed to produce any comparable names. Ben Jonson? Please. I’ve read VOLPONE and found it fairly forgetable. Milton is better, (and yes, I have read PARADISE LOST) but he still falls short of Shakespeare’s prolific and consistent greatness and timelessness.
Perhaps it is true that people read Shakespeare because it seems productive and noble, but the continued performances and reinventions of his work, and the reading and re-reading and reinterpretation would not have continued for 400 years if his works did not continually reward the attention. And the rewards are not only warm fuzzy feelings of getting a taste of culture, or knowing what everyone’s talking about, it’s true deep insight into the human condition.
Saying people primarily read and admire Shakespeare to feel good about themselves is akin to saying people are iconoclasts primarily to feel different, hip, or non-conformist. Maybe so on both counts, but to truly assail Shakespeare’s place as an icon you’d have to either attack the merits of his work, or come up with a comparable icon. Seems to me the iconoclasts on this thread have done neither.
Amen, Brian—-especially when the part about WS’s “deep insight into the human condition.”
Bill has the good sense to include Measure for Measure. No one has mentioned The Winter’s Tale either. Both are just as good as just about anything else that Shakespeare is credited with writing.
And it’s canon, like Pachelbel’s, not cannon like the creator of Red Meat.
Actually I have to confess that The Winter’s Tale is one of those I’ve never read.
And the canon is enforced by some lit folks as if it were by cannon and opposed with equal violence by other lit folks.
Hamlet is the greatest play. It may be followed in equal measure by Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, and Richard III.
The comedies are lesser lights. Twelfth Night is the best of them, but Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, and even The Comedy of Errors are all fine, enjoyable entertainments with wit and insight.
The Merchant of Venice is a problematic play.
A personal favorite from the rest of the plays is Julius Caesar.
I have to agree that Twelfth Night is the best comedy.
The Merchant of Venice is a materpiece, nonetheless. I sometimes wonder if Shylock came across as a jester (back in the day) to those who were not prepared to hear Shakespeare’s sympathetic overtones—not to say that Shakespeare was untouched by the culture of his time. He was a product of it. But even so, his sympathy–even charity at times–toward his characters speaks beyond the social strictures of his culture.
Lear is definitely among the top 5, if not the greatest, in my opinion.
Don Quixote was vote the best book ever by a international team of profesional writers in 2002. If you compare one by one all the works of WS, any is match for DQ.
Simple
Oscar Wilde: “We become lovers when we see Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet makes us students.”
..check other notable tributes and quotes on William Shakespeare from famous peers: http://www.tributespaid.com/quotes-on/william-shakespeare
J-Caez iz teh play, mane.
top five easy.
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