Shakespeare gave us Hamlet - described by some as his best play; by others as the best play ever written!
Indeed, Hamlet is a very special play with its perfectly formulated plot and moping prince, but is it really Shakespeare's best play?
Noel Gallagher certainly wouldn't agree - he recently described Hamlet as "f***ing gibberish". Classy.
The thing about Shakespeare plays is that everyone has their own favorite. As I've said before, I'm a long standing fan of Macbeth.
So what tops Hamlet for you? Tell me what you think is Shakespeare's best play.
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Comments
For its sheer sophistication, I have to go with Shakespeare’s “Troilus and Cressida”–a trenchant satire on sex amid the Trojan War likely written just after another remarkably sophisticated Shakespeare play, “Twelfth Night, or What You Will.” Theresites, the play’s ribald commentator, has it right when he says, “Lechery, lechery, still wars and lechery, nothing else holds fashion.” Shakespeare also depicts Helen of Troy as a whore. “Troilus and Cressida,” with the possible exception of “Othello,” is Shakespeare’s most sensual play, while “Twelfth Night” is his most erotic. Yes, that’s right! “Twelfth Night” is an extremely titillating, erotic play for its riveting expression of sexual ambiguity and sexual identity crises set off by Viola’s decision to disguise herself as a man. It’s just not the innocent, “child-friendly” play too many directors unfortunately suppose it to be!–Wayne Myers, author of “The Book of Twelfth Night, or What You Will: Musings on Shakespeare’s Most Wonderful (and Erotic) Play.”
Has everyone forgotten Shakespeare’s masterpiece King Lear? The plot, the sub plot, the character development, the heartbreakingly tragic climax. The sheer drama on the heath and in the hovel? “Those of us that are young shall never see so much or live so long!”
However, for sheer beauty of language I prefer Macbeth.
For it’s poetry about love and its comedy about people’s personalities, I think LLL is Shakespeare’s best play.
Hello,
my favourite play is without any doubt 1 Henry IV although I am certain that a lot of people may think otherwise.
There are always plays which evoke our sympathies, so there is a play like King Lear which I think is Shakespeare’s greatest play. But as I said it’s all a personal matter.
Thanks a lot for your many details concerning the plays of the Bard. I did a lot of inservice teacher training- and I know you can do so only if you are committed to his plays.
Carry on….
Best regards
Norbert Timm
The Henriad as a collective unit, hands down. Ultimately, though, the question is bootless. Which is superior: Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis or Monteverdi’s Marian Vespers?
Who knows??? We would be measurably diminished had we neither of them. So we would be equally lessened had we one fewer of the known, thirty-seven plays that Shakespeare either wrote or co-wrote; although, I could easily do without Pericles, Prince of Tyre.
Sorry to be predictable, but Hamlet is Shakespeare working on all cylinders, in every area: plot, poetry, character, humor, philosophy and aesthetics. It’s strong in performance as well as on the page.
It’s the play we’d miss the most if he hadn’t written it. There’s a reason the Prince is “the most famous person who never lived.”
Joe
Hamlet is certainly the most ubiqitious among Shakespeare’s plays. Everyone, even those who never read it, is familiar with many of the lines which have become part of the lexicon.
The play does suffer some plot and structual problems, such as Polonius sending Reynaldo to Paris (but he never returns) and most significantly, the chain of events on Hamlet’s voyage to England, none of which is actually part of the play.
Still, the issues and questions it raises likely contribute to its lofty status as Shakespeare’s best.
It is my personal favorite, a slight nod over Macbeth, though the play’s poetic value is superior in some ways to Hamlet, and it rivals the number of memorable lines.
All that being said, the single greatest play is probably King Lear due to its close connection to Shakespeare’s own life and the process Lear experiences in realizing his mistakes, albeit too late.
Along those lines, I always say that RICHARD II is my favorite. It has an amazingly tragic plot (poor deluded Richard refuses to let his world view stray beyong the Middle Ages while cousin Bollingbroke is more progressive). It has gorgeous poetry (I believe it was written around the same time as R+J and the Sonnets). It’s a history, which is an intricate and fascinating form.
RICHARD II!
this is ridiculous. obviously hamlet and macbeth tie for the best in setup and drama, and much ado in dialogue (when/if performed correctly).
I have the same problem with the question as others have noted. This guy Shakespeare turned out so much in several genres. Selecting a ‘best’ is rhetorical. Whose standard to apply? Aristotle’s rules re drama, or one’s own construct?
Just today, I had occasion to quote “Neither a borrower nor a lender be….” It seems (Hamlet to his mom: “I know not seems”) that Shakespeare has lessons and poetry for every one for every day – - and night.
He is a font of the highest literary artistry.
I often wish that A. C. Bradley had written on the histories, the comedies, the Roman plays, and the problem plays. He was a wonderful commentator on Shakespeare’s tragedies.
Ask S. Greenblatt and A. Nuthall (Sp?) for their choices: They may have personal favorites, but no best one.
How can the question of “best” play be resolved? Hamlet is beyond brilliant, despite or perhaps because of plot eccentricities and unanswered questions. So is King Lear.
But there are other “bests.” I think of Henry V as the “best” of the histories; the 1990 Henry V at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, directed by James Edmondson, with Marco Barricelli as Henry, is the best (no quote marks required) production I’ve ever seen, and it’s possible that such an amazing and indelible theatre experience influences my judgment of the script. For me, Twelfth Night stands as the “best” of the comedies because of the text itself—I’ve never seen a completely satisfying production. I feel obliged to call The Tempest the “best” of the romances, but in my theatre-going, nothing moves people like the end of The Winter’s Tale, even after what is almost always a tedious and puzzling and generally inadequate Bohemia section. To what extent does emotional response factor into excellence?
Considering these plays, I conclude that the greatness of a script owes much to the magnitude and mythic resonances of the subject as well as to the brilliance of the writing. I still can’t conclude which play is “best.”
If talking of groundbreaking cultural significance, “Hamlet” should be named one of the main Shakespeare’s plays that are deeply rooted to the very core of Russian society. There is a slight sense of irony in the very fact that such an important play came to Russian world from Western literature background, but it found there its second home very quickly. Since then Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” has always been playing a special role in Russian culture. Since the middle of the 18th century the Shakespeare’s tragedy has found a quick response among writers and later among readers and theatergoers. As a character Hamlet have a broad scope of application, for instance, it was discussed in Ivan Turgenev’s essay (Hamlet and Don Quixote, 1860), became a feature of Mikhail Vrubel’s painting (Hamlet and Ophelia, 1888) and a film by Grigory Kozintsev (1964), etc. First appearing in Raphael Holinshed’s chronicles, Hamlet as an iconic character has been employed by a great range of original works by Russian authors: Alexander Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Alexander Blok, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Boris Pasternak, etc. Playing Hamlet every new generation passes a test on “damn questions” that the protagonist brings out in his soliloquies.
I love and hate questions like this; as a high school teacher, my response to my students lacks the soul of wit:
1. King Lear is often considered his “greatest” play, but I have trouble with a guy who makes some poor decisions at the beginning and hasn’t got enough sense to come in out of the rain. However, as I’ve embraced middle age, I’ve become much more sympathetic to Lear.
2. In an undergraduate course on Shakespeare, I’d heard that Hamlet (the play and the character) has been written about more often than any other subject except Jesus Christ.
3. Macbeth is my personal favorite. It was well taught to me in high school, starts with a bang, has amazing characters, contains powerful themes for anyone, but especially those who live close to Washington D.C.; it’s cursed, and it’s short.
The comedies don’t seem funny to me unless I see them acted out on stage.
I wanted to use Cordelia, Desdemona, or Portia as middle names for my daughters, but my wise wife vetoed my idea.
Perhaps picking a “best” play by Shakespeare is like picking a best friend. There may be different ones for different times of life; why stop at just one?
I love the comedies: Twelfth Night, Midsummer, Much Ado. Such fun to watch different interpretations. I find Merchant of Venice very disturbing. The racism is as painful to me as in Othello.
I’m really looking forward to the new movie ‘Anonymous’. It explores the “what if” Shakespeare did not write any of his plays. http://youtu.be/S5XcyiQ50W8
What about Romeo and Juliet?