Favourite Shakespeare

[Mycernius]

I am from the county of Shakespeares birth, Warwickshire, and I am wondering which of the bards genre of plays and whic of those plays are your favourites, or do you even like Shakespeare. Far enough I live in North Warwickshire and my town, Nuneaton, is better known as the birthplace of George Eliot, but Warwickshire styles itself as Shakespeares county.
So what do you like. His comedies such as Comedy of Errors, The Tempest, Taming of the shrew; His Histroical plays like Henry V, Richard the Third or King John; his tragedies of Macbeth, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet; or his poems and sonnets.
I wasn't into Shakespeare as a teenager. Forced upon us at school you don't really appreciate the plays at that age when you have to write essays on a play wriiten in Elizabethan English. But as I got older I started to get into some of his plays. I love Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet and have even played the Duke of Syracuse in Comedy of Errors. It is a pity that schools can put off people from some great plays for life.

[Minty]

I like mid summer's night dream, Romeo and Juliet and Othello.

[No-name]

I had a great teacher in college...David Rhodes at UCLA... he brought in different actors to share with us on how parts can be read, how the director's choices will shape the play-- how you can play different parts with subtle changes... We heard from Patrick Stewart, Ian McClellan and Kenneth Branaugh among others...

[Ma Cherie]

I happen to like:

Hamlet
As You Like It
A Midsummer's Night Dream

And my favorite is McBeth.

[Maciamo]

I like his historical plays, especially those about Ancient Rome (Julius Caesar, etc.). Tragedies come after that. I dislike Shakespeare's comedies (Midsummer Night's dream, the Tempest...) because they are unrealistic.

[Mikawa Ossan]

Othello, MacBeth, Hamlet

It's all such quality stuff!

I'm also somewhat fond of The Merchant of Venice. I saw the Royal Shakespeare Company perform it here in Japan a few years ago. They only performed in 2 locations, from what I understood. Namely, Tokyo and Nagato City in Yamaguchi Prefecture. I saw it in Nagato.

[kirei_na_me]

Sonnet 116

[No-name]

SONNET 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Excellent!

How about sonnet 130?

[Tsuyoiko]

My favourite by a mile is Macbeth, which I studied for my GCSE. I was lucky enough to have an English teacher who helped us fall in love with Shakespeare. I can practically quote the whole thing from memory.

I also love A Midsummer Night's Dream. It is so funny and magical.

[Sensuikan San]

"As you like it" and "Richard the Third" (Tony Soprano with a limp, in a codpiece ...always liked a good villain! )

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[Mycernius]

How about your favourite quotes.
Romeo and Juliet opening
"Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene.
Where ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From foth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life..."

Just sums up the play so well

[Sensuikan San]

Ah! Yes! Shakespearian quotes! Always good!

Had an engineer friend once; he bought a house next to one that was owned by some pretty pretentious neighbors. They had named their home "Perchance to Dream"

It caused his wife a lot of hard work to prevent him (he said) from naming their own home from the following line ...


"... ah! There's the Rub!"

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[Tsuyoiko]

"Will all great Neptune's oceans wash this blood clean from my hand?
No, this my hand would rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine
Making the green one red" - Macbeth

[Kinsao]

Sadly, I have not read many of Shakespeare's plays, and none of the historical ones.
I like Macbeth the most out of the ones I have read; Hamlet second.

[Ma Cherie]

To be honest, I can't say that I like Romeo and Juliet. Mainly because the it's been done so many times and there are so many different versions of it.

[ricecake]

My favorite TV or film version of Shakespeare's works.

Hamlet
Romeo and Juliet
Othello

[Duo]

I really like Othello... but in general all shakespeare's plays are so good. I love the metaphors and diction. amazing stuff

[MikawaObasan]

What about A Midsummer Night's Dream

[Ma Cherie]

I'm taking a course that is dedicated entirely to Shakespeare. I just finished Richard III and I'm going to read Titus Andronicus.

Richard III is now one of my favorite Shakespeare plays.

[wordnote]

As for me I would advantage"Hamlet". The main character of the work is rebellious.He wants to break the wall raised beetween men as"Pink Floyd" says.Though he seems to know from the very beginning that he is sacrificed.Despite his desperation he did not get used to the evil reigning around him. Hamlet knows that he cannot alter men but,anaway,his honest soul cannot be silent.He seems to display some closeness to Don Kihot a great as well hero of Cervantes.

[LeeAnn]

As i prefer reading either scary or funny books i prefer Shakespear's comedies

[Mako]

Certainly, Hamlet is Shakespeare’s most psychologically complex character, balancing grief and affection so perfectly – as the critic James Agate once said, “Hamlet must make us cry one minute and shudder the next”.

[Cambrius (The Red)]

Macbeth and Hamlet are my favorites.

[bud]

Macbeth and Hamlet are my favorites.

They are also my favourites

[Angela]

King Lear is my favorite I think; his most profound work.
I also like Hamlet very much. A Midsummer Night's Dream and Twelfth Night have great charm, and the poetry of the language in Romeo and Juliet is breathtaking. (Read his sonnets too)

I guess you can tell I love Shakespeare-my favorite writer of all time.

What are some of your favorite quotes? These are some of mine; I'll limit myself to a few that may not be as well known.

He can be pretty grim:

As flies to wanton boys are we to th'gods,
They kill us for their sport.
King Lear Act 4 scene 1, 36-37.

Or how is this for a call to blood lust and war:

And Caesar's spirit, raging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice
Cry "Havoc" and let slip the dogs of war,
That his foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial

Julius Caesar Act 3, scene 1, 270-275

Or...
"O what men dare do! What men may do! What men daily
do, not knowing what they do"
Much Ado About Nothing (IV, i, 19-21)

As to love, he can swing from...
Sonnet 147
My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.''

To...
...Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,...
Sonnet 116

He's fabulous.