/lit/ - Literature

Hamlet mogs Macbeth

too edgy
breaks apart even on a little scrutiny
absolutely no sense of logic
everyone is just dressing up and taking disguises like we're fucking zombies
everyone talks like they're drunk or something

i have no clue why the west praises this faggot so much

>>22887632
I think Macbeth is much more focused without sacrificing the ability to talk about it endlessly. You don't have to think about the play within a play, whether Hamlet is really just mad north north west, what the fuck is going on between Ophelia and Hamlet, what's going on with the ending, etc. I love them both. Hamlet covers more ground, and the greater ambiguity probably lends itself to discussion more easily, but I don't think Macbeth is any less interesting than Hamlet, either as characters or as plays. And the "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" soliloquy beats out those in Hamlet imo, though Hamlet definitely has more that are memorable.

>>22887609
You mean Francis Bacon?
https://
discord
gg/xpyrve3M

>>22887664
what's this?

>>22887632
Macbeth is dramatically superior. It has a really astounding economy of scenes, whereas quite a few in Hamlet, though of course still essential, are not as memorable. Everything is so concise, with a headlong forcefulness. Hamlet feels like it could have ended a billion different ways, one of the most striking things about it is the free character all the talking and events acquire. But like a classic tragedy I can't imagine Macbeth ending any other way than it was destined to. It's almost unnerving how radically individual the unity of structure and theme is in each Shakespeare play; the tragic theme of fate in Macbeth, and the perplexed observer in Macbeth.

>>22887675
He's just advertising his shitty discord

>>22887685
>and the perplexed observer in Macbeth.
*Hamlet

What would you recommend to someone that wants to read Shakespeare but is spooked about the early modern English? I don't think a comedy is appropriate because of how often comedic elements rely on wordplay; maybe Julius Caesar or Macbeth?

>>22887713
I had two methods:

1. Just read it through as quickly as possible, like you were watching a performance, and only search up the meaning of words when not knowing it is particularly egregious to the story. After that slowly go over the play and look up every word you don't know, and read over every confusing turn of phrase. This will build up your Shakespeare lexicon and properly familiarize you with his language.

2. The inverse of this.

I recommend Macbeth.

I am building up my collection of Shakespeare editions
I buy everything I can find at thrift shops
I will always buy an arden edition, I will usually buy an oxford edition, sometimes I buy signet editions and sometimes I buy penguins

>>22887645
Poetry. The plots are borrowed, the details improvised. But it's true poetry.

Lear on top, Midsummer as boss comedy, Julius Caesar maybe underrated, Othello over

>>22887747
You think Othello has the reputation it does because of the sociopolitical preoccupations of today? Othello and Iago especially are great but beyond that it feels a little middling in comparison to the other tragedies people exalt

>>22887777
No, I just think the second half is bad. First half is glorious, but act 4 especially is a mess

Bump, tell me about Shakespeare, why do they call him the bard

>>22887777
Honor killings are no longer a major part of Med culture, but in terms of a work of literature about honor killing, Othello is superb.

>>22887777
I just finished a reread of Othello yesterday; i got chills when I realized during Iago's "Beware [my lord] of Jealousy" speech he is speaking from his jealousy-rotted heart, probably the only time he's honest with another person in the whole text.

>>22887713
Just get one with annotations, bro. The Arden editions are extremely good. But try not to rely on the footnotes unless you're really mystified; if you're going to them after every line the experience feels too academic. I also sometimes pull up the scene I just read on youtube to see another person's interpretation.
Just let yourself be absorbed by the storyline; that's what Shakespeare ultimately is, good storytelling. To paraphrase Bloom, remember these plays are part of your heritage; the language you speak and the media you consume are all rooted in them. So you'd be crazy to think there's something inaccessible about the language.

>>22887777
Othello is more Sophoclean and less Aeschylean, i.e. it’s more about the structure itself and less about the accretion of linguistic play on top of the structure. In Shakespeare this can perhaps be classed as a flaw since his plots were not his own, but Othello is second to none in the fine points of characterization, it just has fewer moments of poetic bliss than the other tragedies, it’s more focused on verisimilitude.

>>22887632
by farrr
Hamlet is a fantastic piece of literature but pretty much everything else he wrote works better as a play (I don't mean better than Hamlet) and not really worth reading

>>22889028
I think Shakespeare makes the story wholly his own, as you say about characterization. But his poetry shows so much more than just poetic invention or psychological characterization, it dictates the action of a scene; its rapidity, total effect and so forth, and so you can't just segregate the poetry from the dramatic structure.

>>22889093
Sure I agree that the whole is always integrated and that's the most important thing, but there's a reason so many lines and speeches from Shakespeare are known outside of their original context, they are fine jewels which can be appreciated on their own regardless of where they are set in the play. That's all I'm referring to when I talk about how Othello is different, and it's salient because that's one of the areas where Shakespeare usually particularly excelled. I'm not saying it's a flaw, I think it's a necessary adjustment given the nature of the characters and subject matter, but it is a real difference.

>>22887609
Of all I've read, Julius Caesar is the best
Titus Andronicus also holds a special place for me, and is highly underrated

>>22887632
I don't think anyone argues for the superiority of Macbeth.

>>22889913
Out of the five great tragedies the only one that can be considered 'inferior' at all is Romeo and Juliet, and needless to say it's still one of the undeniable masterpieces of Western art. You can't say Macbeth is inferior to Hamlet, or Othello to Lear.

>>22889952
Romeo & Juliet is a comedy.

>>22887609
The Earl of Oxford wrote all of 'Shakespeare's plays'.

>>22890010
>Romeo & Juliet is a comedy.
It may feel like one but it's a tragedy because they both die in the end. And it's not like the tragic elements are only ironically used.

>casually drops the deepest shit you've ever read in the middle of a lighthearted comedy romp
the GOAT

>>22890010
>The Earl of Oxford wrote all of 'Shakespeare's plays'.
Who wrote The Tempest?

>>22887609
>underrated
Richard II
Love's Labor's Lost

>overrated
Most of his comedies (besides LLL)
King Lear

>>22889821
>Titus Andronicus
amazing play, but it is too controversial in our modern world to ever get staged. One of my favorite lines ever is when he denies the crown

>Give me a staff for my old age, but not a scepter to rule the world

>>22890106
it also has picrel, perhaps one of Shakespeare's best monologues

>>22890205
amazing

>>22887713
Just read it and work through it. It's not nearly as hard as many think. Find the fun in it.

You DO have several speeches an monologues from Shakespeare memorized, don't you, /lit/?

I've memorized To Be Or Not To Be, the Saint Crispin's Day speech, and the closing speeches from The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream. I keep meaning to memorize Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow.

>>22890237
>To Be Or Not To Be, the Saint Crispin's Day speech, and the closing speeches from The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream
Wow, that's some personal taste you've got there! Must have taken you a long time to discover these ones.

>>22890251
What do you have memorized, Anon?

>>22890279
How all occasions do inform against me

>>22890251
What in his post implied that he meant to express unique personal tastes?
We're talking about the most famous author of all time you dumb faggot, if you're so committed to "popular things are le bad" then go read Peele or Ford instead.

>>22887609
>Overrated
His plays.
>Underrated
His sonnets.

>>22890373
It's not about popular thing le bad, it's the fact that his appreciation of Shakespeare clearly never went beyond the popular image of him. Which is a shame because Shakespeare's genius extends infinitely beyond that image. Ask yourself this: does 'To be or not to be', or any of the other soliloquys mentioned by the anon, stand abnormally above the rest of Shakespeare's soliloquys?

>>22890460
You're doing an awful lot of judging from a simple list.

>>22890044
I knew a literature professor who was obsessed with this play. I should really read it.

>>22890044
I feel like Shakespeare has something like this in every play, like something about the imagination and inner life being great while the real world is disappointing, such as the whole of The Tempest, eyes and those who were blinded finally able to “see” in Lear, etc

>>22890237
>myself I throw, dread aovereign, at thy foot. My life that shalt command, but not my shame. The one my duty owese, but my fair name despite of death that lives upon my grave, to dark dishonor's use? Thou shalt not have. I am disgraced, impeeched, and baffled here, pierced to the soul with slander's venomed apear the which no balm can cure but his heartblood with breathed this poison

>yea, but not to change his spots. Take but my shame and I resign my gauge. My dear, dear lord, the purest treasure mortal times afford is spotless reputation. Short of that, man is but guilded loam, or painted clay. A jewel in a ten times barred up chest is a bold spirit in a noble breast. My honor is my life, both grow in one, take honor from me and my life is done. Then, dear my liege, mine honor let me try. In that I live, and for that I will die.

So what was the deal with the Ghost in Hamlet? Was he actually a spirit from Purgatory, King Hamlet's own soul, or was he really a demon?

>>22890460
I've not done enough close rereading of Shakespeare to really give confident ratings of the different speeches, but generally within a restricted domain like this popularity and quality will have some association (hence Shakespeare's own popularity relative to his contemporaries). In this case the popularity may have to do more with subject matter than technical brilliance but for most people that's also how their personal taste works, something will stand out to them because it reflects their own experiences and feelings.
The "tomorrow" one stands out to me as unmatched though.

>underrated
Richard II
>overrated
Richard III

>>22890460
I think "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" is pretty much head and shoulders above the rest that I've read. Maybe some of the good ones where characters relate acting to real life get close.

>>22890608
the world being a stage in that Hamlet soliloquy is kind of like this

>>22890716
I don't think there's anything better in post-Classical poetry than those first three lines.

>>22890380
This anon gets it

>tfw no one ever reads Henry VI

Talbot was my man.

>>22891003
>sonnets
>underrated
his sonnets are overrated, if anything

>>22887632
alright. Time to read hamlet today.

>>22890205
Hi, ESL here. So if I understood it correctly Lavinia was r*ped and the husband killed, so now this guy is serving their heads for a feast to their mother or to his mother? Please don't tell me I'm retarded.

>>22887609
His comedies have no business being as comfy and funny as they are. Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, Midsummer Night's Dream, all of them.

>>22891703
The Kenneth Brannagh Much Ado About Nothing movie is unmitigated kino

What best comedy?

>>22890080
>King Lear
>overrated
how?

What the fuck is Iago's problem? Even after he gets the lieutenant position he's like a dog with a bone. If he put so much effort and cunning into his work on the battlefield he probably would've had it to begin with, and probably some sort of career past it. He's sorta one dimensional, comic book villainy, isn't he? Like Don John

>>22890380
my dyslexia hates this font more than even those gay fake pagan ones.
excellent choice of sonnet though, amigo

>>22887632
Romeo and Juliet mogs both

>>22891786
Denzel Washington is actually a pretty good Shakespearean actor and it's why I didn't mind him playing Macbeth. I hope when he gets a little older he'll star in an adaptation of King Lear, I think he'd be a good Lear.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlKvv83qFhQ

>>22892392
The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night,
Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light,
And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels
From forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels:
Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye,
The day to cheer and night's dank dew to dry,
I must up-fill this osier cage of ours
With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.
The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb;
What is her burying grave that is her womb,
And from her womb children of divers kind
We sucking on her natural bosom find,
Many for many virtues excellent,
None but for some and yet all different.
O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies
In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities:
For nought so vile that on the earth doth live
But to the earth some special good doth give,
Nor aught so good but strain'd from that fair use
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;
And vice sometimes by action dignified.
Within the infant rind of this small flower
Poison hath residence and medicine power:
For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;
Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.
Two such opposed kings encamp them still
In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will;
And where the worser is predominant,
Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.

About to read Antony and Cleopatra, what am I in for? 82am48

>>22892426
I agree but unfortunately I didn't think his Macbeth was especially great. That's probably no fault of his own; Macbeth's my favorite Shakespeare play and character, and I think he has to be one of if not THE most difficult to play well. The range of emotion, the guilty and ever-reluctant resolve for wrongdoing that descends into madness and fatalistic resignation, and the soliloquies on top of all that.

To be honest I've never seen a performance that blew me away the same way reading the play for the first time did. There's a cool video on YouTube somewhere that shows a bunch of different stage and screen deliveries of the "and tomorrow" soliloquy and I don't even think any of those are perfect. Denzel's Macbeth was safe and solid enough to make a good movie, but it failed to capture well the emotional extremes that are evident in the play.

>>22892528
>>22892426
But all that said his Don Pedro was amazing. I could see him make a good Lear

>>22892361
>>/lit/thread/22758199

>>22887609
I really really liked Midsummer Nights Dream. He needs more rhyming in his plays.

>>22891168
The girl was raped and her hands and tongue were cut off and her husband killed. Her dad is the guy talking, and his hand was also cut off as punishment after he was set up by the two dudes he's talking to. He kills them and makes a banquet of their bodies and feeds them to their mother.

>>22887713
Literally just watch Julius Caesar (1970) then movie onto any other faithful adapt of bill's you can find.

>>22892540
Interesting assessment, but couldn't the same exact argument be given in support of what strikes me as a far more likely conclusion: that the play is just mediocre? I guess it depends on how compelling you find Iago as a character.

But to humor you, this makes me wonder why have Othello be Moorish at all? What purpose does it serve, except to make the audience dislike him for no flaw of his own (until his jealousy takes hold), to root against him and his miscegenation? He does strike us as an otherwise unlikely Shakespeare tragic hero. He is one dimensional Good until brought to ruin, not through a fault or cause of his own but by the intrigue of Iago.

The issue is that I just don't sympathize with Iago. He plots and betrays and deceives out of compulsion, not even caring for his wife. I can't recall reading anything that might help me to sympathize with him, unless it's admiration for the craftsmanship of his treachery. I find it more likely that he's a stock character rather than an earnest portrayal of a human being. Am I wrong to think so?

The more I read Othello the less I like it.

>>22892291
to me it's good, but not great. Lear is hailed as one of his great characters but he's a bit of a boring creature. He literally ruins his and his families life, as well as his kingdoms prosperity, because his Cordelia didn't flatter him. A play like Richard II examines flattery (a prevalent theme in many Shakespearean trgedies) in a more honest and simple way, for example. The secondary plot with Edgar, Edmond and Gloucester is almost more interesting than the main one. It is difficult to sympathize with Lear since his conceit is so childish and stupid. I know that's the point, but there are far better characters he has written. His remorse and powerful soliloquy's in the final act can't make up for it. For me, characters like Macbeth, Hamlet, Richard II, Othello and Prospero as more iconic and inspired. From this aspect, Lear is overrated to me.

>>22892892
nta, but I'm also perplexed when I hear people like Bloom talk about the ineffable greatness of Lear's character as a bygone model of royal grandiloquence when he is human, all too human, with among the most petty flaws of any Shakespearean tragic hero

I feel a personal connection with Macbeth. Both forced and tricked into risking his own life to do the bidding of women, and then after fulfilling their every whim, he is suddenly the tyrant.
>They have tied me to a post. I cannot flee. But bear like I must fight the course.

Bump

Lear and Othello just don't scratch the same itch that Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Macbeth do. How's The Tempest?

>>22890106
>but it is too controversial in our modern world to ever get staged
What? Only real reason it does not get staged often is because the movie turned it into a meme and everyone got sick of it. ffs the local children's theater did it a few years ago.

>>22893816
these people are retarded. Even Merchant of Venice continues to be staged.

>>22893797
The roles of Lear and Othello both have enormously more potential and therefore difficulty than Romeo, Hamlet and Macbeth. They're superhuman feats of energy and emotional intensity wherein bare realism does not suffice.

>>22893816
there's a rape scene, someone getting their hands and tongue cut out, feeding ones children to their mother and then a pretty anti-black rhetoric and imagery regarding the moor and his bastard child
It's not controversial to me, but to most modern sensibilities it is. I only ever see it produced at summer shakespeare festivals, in the states anyway, amd even then it's been years since I've seen anyone do it, and those had heavy edits and cuts to the script.

>>22894112
>Othello
>enormously more potential and therefore difficulty than Hamlet and Macbeth.
Not a chance. He is almost entirely one-dimensional. First he's full of good, and then he's full of jealousy. That's it. And the change takes place in the course of a single soliloquy.

Macbeth is the greatest play in all of drama.

>>22894172
in terms of language of passion, I agree. And I might agree overall but I think Richard II holds that distinction for me personally.

Can somebody tell me King Lear is a better character than Othello? Just finished Othello and I'm pretty disappointed

>>22894189
Othello disappointed me too. However, it plays wayyyyyyy better as an Opera than a play. Del Monaco is probably the greatest interpreator of Othello ever, play or Opera. Many say Max Lorenz was also a great Othello but sadly we have no video

his death scene: https://youtu.be/xSe3XCzF4dI?si=bcCamMmvK8czwX6u

"un bacio"- a kiss

>>22892540
This is good food for thought. Was Iago actually the protagonist and tragic hero of Othello?

>>22894216
That sounds interesting. I'm not gonna act like I know the first thing about operas but I could see how it might work better as one if operas be more appropriate for highly dramatized, exaggerated performances less focused on ever-changing and nuanced emotions, because that's sort of how Othello and Iago strike me. Pardon me if this sounds like me shitting on opera because that's not my intention

>>22894135
Most any action movie are more graphic. After the movie came (1999?) out we had a decade or so of theater companies trying to outdo each other on the gore (picrel) and it was probably the most commonly done Shakespeare play for a few years there. Everyone got sick of it and the one upmanship on the gore even if it did produce some amazing productions and by 2010 or so it almost completely was dropped. It was starting to get done again before the shutdown killed theater for a few years and I saw it twice around 2018 (once the Children's Theatre performance (no, they did not edit it) and once a fairly major production). Quick look and RSC did it in 2017, Shakespeare’s Globe did it last year and I bet I could find a few major companies doing it now if I cared.

You are talking out of your ass. But thanks for talking to me like I am 8 and have never read it let alone seen it.

>>22890822
I thought the "all the world's a stage" soliloquy was pretty lackluster compared to other ones in the same vein, like in Hamlet or Midsummer Night's Dream or The Tempest. It's less about existence and more just likening life to the acts of a play

>>22894286
>talking to you like you were 8
I wasn't, I was just highlighting why it's considered one of Shakespeares most controversial plays. I was not intending to offend or demean you, although you evidently took it that way.

>>22894275
Opera plots do well when the characters are more or less one dimensional and I think Othello fits that bill pretty well. Compare that to Macbeth which has more nuanced characters and it doesn't translate as well into an Opera, outside of maybe Lady Macbeth who is fairly straightforward in her ambitions and aims.

>>22891030
I'll read it anon

>>22894404
Yeah I was thinking of Macbeth when I wrote that. Even Lady Macbeth is at least more interesting than Othello in my opinion. Sort of a more extreme Macbeth, with much better soliloquies than Othello.

>>22894388
>likening life to the acts of a play
>less about existence
hmmm not sure I follow anon

my granddad bought me this version of the complete plays, with eric fraser illustrations, I've only perused its so far

>>22894567
That's awesome. My grandma had a late nineteenth century illustrated complete works (same as pic related) left over from my grandpa, but my uncle got them when she died, and he uses them to look nice in a bookshelf. I never asked for them because I never thought I'd be able to read Shakespeare without notes like those in Arden or Folger. Unfortunately it's probably for the best though, because they're not all in reading condition anyway.

>>22894398
>waffle
It hasn't been controversial for a very long time and no one worries about offending people by staging it. But you can go to bed comforted by your belief that I was just triggered. You really are smart, like a literal genius. I bet your mom sticks all of your posts on the fridge.

What's the best Christmas Shakespeare play?

>>22894928
Twelfth Night

bump

>Cuckposting in 1598

Nothing personal Chud.

Bump, happy new year

>>22892540
Did you know Iago has the second most lines of any Shakespeare character, behind Hamlet?

>>22896660
Fitting

>taming of the shrew
>page 3
>Ah, yes, sirrah, go dress Bartholmew as a woman so we can catfish this beggar

Why do people say society has become more sexual?

Shakespeare used the Sonnets to encode:

- The speed of light
- The speed of sound
- Earth-Moon distance
- Earth-Sun distance
- Mars-Sun distance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xOGeZt71sg

Seriously though, what are the redeeming qualities of Othello? I'm floored that this play is as well received as it is. The only thing I could see is if you thought Iago was a particularly interesting character but he's not really written like it

>>22897594
that part was kinda hot

What's a good play of his that's lesser known?

>>22887663
“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” and “To be or not to be” are dead tied for the most incredible soliloquy in English

>>22892660
Othello's Moorish ancestry is an important part of his tragic character. It is useful to think of Othello as possessing a kind of 'savage nobility', in the sense that it renders his prideful and bragging nature germane and unconceited. Othello IS prideful, but that pride has its heart in his 'nature', which, as a noble savage, is precisely uncomplicated. He experiences emotion without the repression of European civilisation, more fully and more openly. At the start of the play, this is what makes him 'great'—his bravery, charisma, and force of personality allow him to rise in Venetian society. But likewise, it is what allows Iago to bring him low. Tragedy is, after all, the constancy of character in changing circumstances. His position as a Moor in Venice defines him as an 'other' which conforms to a set of characteristics befitting his race. There is a dualism to this: those who are conciliatory view his as above, as a kind of simple nobility; those who detest him view him as savage, lusty, and arrogant. In a way, Othello's tragic downfall is his affirmation of every negative stereotype of his Moorish nature—he becomes the monster that everyone expects him to be. There is only one character who sees 'the man behind the moor', and that is Desdemona. This is what makes her murder so dramatically powerful: It is Othello killing the only person who viewed him as human as he descends into a beast. He is a character defined (literally) by outside forces, from his lack of agency to his very character. Is he noble or is he savage? he was always both. I don't think we're to see Othello initially as odious, but i do think he is one of the tragic heroes we are meant to hate as the play goes on (which in turn is why we begin to like Iago). The sympathy we feel isn't for Othello at the end of the play—he is truly wretched at that point. We don't despair his death. Rather, the tragedy is a detached sadness at the corruption of his 'simple' soul. I think it is quite an interesting catharsis, but i understand why you might not like the play that much if you're expecting the complexity of a Hamlet. Personally i've found it a play that lives in performance rather than text.

>>22898033
Comedy of Errors

>>22898361
I don't know if I buy it. The only shit he gets for being a Moor is in the very beginning. It's only brought up a couple times after that beyond people calling Othello, "the Moor."

>>>22897701
fellas!! A reading group??

I love Francis Bacon

>>22899090
I want other author-tards to leave. What's the point? What does it even matter?

>>22887609
What Shakespeare play is best to start with

>>22899204
Macbeth.

>>22899215
Why?

>>22897659
It's all about the dramatic construction in Othello, the movement and action, which necessitates reading it as a performance with no lingering over this sentence or that. If the final scene is not so horrific it's almost unbearable then you're reading it wrong.

>>22887609
I have done thy mother

>>22894160
>He is almost entirely one-dimensional.
Because you read him without imagination. The bare lines he speaks in certain scenes are not meant to be fully expressing his character, rather it's the rapidity and regularity of them in his interactions. Otherwise he truly is a one-note character as you mistake him. You need to stop thinking of Shakespeare characterization as only meaning the soliloquy. Compare with what is intended with a performance of Othello vs a performance of Hamlet; the latter can be just as much a template for an actor of genius, but we can believe it just as much and follow it as a story if he and every scene is played realistically and quite uninterestingly. We can only believe Othello if he is played with all the vigor his movements demand. Another thing you misunderstand stand is the coherence of Othello's character. His Moorish character explains it, he takes things in earnest unlike a more reflective Western character. What a dearth of interpretive ability to say Othello is, as a character and not even as drama, one-dimensional and inexplicable in his actions!

>>22899226
Aside from how great it is, how memorable it is, and how referenced it is, it's short, it's focused, it's not too expansive like Hamlet is, and it has some of Shakespeare's best soliloquies.

Is Hamlet a sigma male?
Took revenge on his father, and ignored Ophelia so she decided to kill herself.

>>22899286
Makes sense I suppose, but like you say, there's little dialogue any performance of Othello can rely on to demonstrate those other dimensions to the reading audience, so I don't find it strange that I apparently missed it. Shakespeare's other plays have moved me just with language and my admittedly limited imaginative capacity, both tragedies and comedies. I expected such a well-reputed play as Othello to do the same. What's more, I haven't seen many plays on stage, but a couple of the productions I have paled in comparison to the written word, usually on the backs of characters like Hamlet and Macbeth.

You know somewhere I can watch a good production of Othello? I'd be interested to see what I apparently missed.

>>22899369
I struggled with Othello when I first read it too. I'm probably sounding too critical. But I never thought the character was two-dimensional. I felt the drama was one note and repetitive, but the characters always stood out to me in all the subtlety and reality expected from Shakespeare, because I retained my mental image of them established in their early soliloquys. But the inkling that first allowed me to understand the play was that quick interchange of lines that is often there, wherein a definite modulation of tempo and energy can be read. And we can't expect vital energy to have been envisioned with anything less than the force of lightning in Shakespeare, though actors may attenuate it. You cannot expect actors to do justice to Shakespeare, he is for the exceptional performer only, but a Shakespeare culture requires endless performances. Personally I have never seen a good performance of Othello but looking at old photos of performances I can see they do exist.

>>22899318
He's just a beta male, spent three acts sitting around doing nothing

bump

I just started the Tempest, it's great

bump, talk about shakespeare guys, please

Do you guys remember what Shakespeare plays you read in school?
>Twelfth Night in 8th grade
>Romeo and Juliet in 9th grade
>Macbeth in 10th grade
>King Lear in 12th grade

I do some tutoring and this 6th grade kid at a private school is reading Julius Caesar.

>>22887609
>favorite
King Lear is the GOAT
>underrated
Measure for Measure
>overrated
Richard III

>>22889952
I'd give the title of fifth great tragedy to Antony and Cleopatra instead of R&J.

>>22901770
In chronological order:
>The Tempest
>A Midsummer Night's Dream
>Macbeth
>Othello
>Hamlet

>>22890044
The Tempest and Pospero are like the perfect end to Shakespeare's corpus. I imagine Prospero looking like an old Shakes.

>>22887609

>>22887609
>Playright
>Retards read his work like literature without having gone to see the play, even haven seen a recording of the play first.

>>22901967
>criticizes people that read
>can't spell playwright
checks out

>>22887609
What's your favorite sonnet of his?

Cleopatra is my favorite female character ever.

>>22901770
You know If hate to say with some shame that I've never actually read twelfth night
Never realized it until now, I know it's supposed to be one of his best comedies but I never sat down to read it. Huh.

>>22903125
She makes me salivate like a big retard.

>>22902285
Have only read a few of them, but 65 is just about as good as any poem I've ever read.

>>22903148
It's pretty fun anon, go for it!

>>22903148
I think along with Hamlet it has one of the best clown performances in his corpus. It's hilarious.

>>22898361
I think an important part of Othello is that Othello isn't the only one subject to this sort of dichotomy. In all Men lie beasts, which can be awakened and set to destroy all else around them
I think this type of animal imagery is what defined the play. In specific, this line always stands out to me
CASSIO
Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost
my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of
myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation,
Iago, my reputation!
Of course, this is said in a moment of of panic after a moment where Cassio is dishonored, and Iago immediately rebukes what is said here. But these words, to me, hold the meaning behind the play. What keeps us Human are the expectations that we are held to, the rules we are meant to play by. If we are to shirk these rules, if we are to leave our reputation to the way side, we become nothing more than monkeys beating out chests. We can see this with Othello when he becomes wroth, but really, when you think of it, the entire play is about Iago abusing his reputation. Everyone thinks of Iago as a ernest trust worthy man. None know the lengths he hates Othello, none know that he harbors some repressed lust to Desdemona, none know of his manipulations. Only his wife is really able to see what his true nature is. When he finally reveals the Iago the audience knows to the world, it is through cold, dispassionate words. He denies any meaning to what he did. He does not explain his actions to the Venetians or the audience. I think that is because he had no real intent with his actions. That there is no greater meaning behind this, that no devil lurks behind his eyes. I think he did what he did because he simply wanted to be rid of his object of hate. That he was a beast who threw away his reputation, and acted on his lust and envy. That in all humans, lies the capability to become Iago

>>22887609
I have only seen the plays or faithful adaptions of them, sometimes with a copy of the text for the difficult parts, but never read them like books. Am I missing much this way? I ask because most people, here at least, seem to favor reading his plays over watching them.

>>22903125
Reading Lear right now and for what little screentime she has, I liked Cordelia a lot

>>22903211
where do you watch them?

>>22903255
Productions by reputed groups on youtube or when I can't find one, movie adaptions. The latter usually have better acting but almost always abridged version of the full text, with Hamlet 1996 being the only exception

>>22903274
I have to imagine you're losing out on at least something, because the on-stage adaptations simply have too much to live up to.

>>22903286
Sometimes they also abridge many parts yeah. But I don't see how the acting of real actors are in anyway inferior to the imagination in my head. And it's not the same case as audio books vs reading, since the plays were written to be seen with the actors' physical gestures alongside the dialogs

>>22887747
>Lear on top
Based. Patrician taste

>>22887713
The Everyman’s library editions have annotations for obscure passages if you’d like to have a hardback that doesn’t have some stupid name like ‘Shakespeare: for dummies.’ They don’t print them anymore but you can find them secondhand fairly easily.

>>22892892
>>22893116
You should consider Lear is an old man retiring into to an infantile-like state. He wants his daughters to basically be like coddling mother figures. His overreaction to Cordelia is like a primal child. He's grotesque and contemptible for it but it's also very sad and pitiable, especially when his psychopath daughters betray him truly and circumstances push him into his incredibly eloquent madness. He's an old king that's also like a regressed newborn baby crying that he was born into "this great stage of fools". He's a phenomenal character, one the best imo.

Bump

>>22892892
But of Lear's character, at least to me, is that at the beginning of the play he's teetering on the edge of madness. What he did to Cordelia, was seen as reprehensible by even his most stalwart supporters. He's an old tyrant, slowly losing control of his mind, desperately trying to cling to his youth and only plummeting further into depravity as his daughters chip away at his mind and power. The audience can't help but feel pity for him and empathize with his plight despite him being a cruel and vile man, hated by two of his own daughters and disowning the only good souls in his house hold. Those conversations with Kent and the Fool go a long way to this end.
And after he is divested of his robes and crown and wanders with the mad and the blind, only then, in the final scenes of the play, do we see the true sparks of the royal Lear, in the catharsis of the play, in his dying breaths. That is when we see a great king that inspired such loyalty in his retainers. It's honestly a masterful use of tragedy in narrative

>>22890044
the idea here is that life but more so human actions in life can be seen as meaningless and we all will disappear? what does rack and rounded mean

>>22905077
Rack = (ship)wreck, i.e. trace or remain, rounded = surrounded, viz. by pre-birth and death