My favorite is King Lear but some prefer As You Like It. Which is your favorite?

Question

Of all of Shakespeare's masterpieces, which would be your top 10? (Notice you could even include the Sonnets which I would include.)

Cool answers! You would be surprised how many quotes come from As You Like It. Of course a fair number come from the Merchant.

What about King Henry IV with Falstaff and Richard III?

Answer 1

Who could resist a question like this? I'll do a David Letterman reverse countdown:

10. Richard III [my favorite villain, even worse than Iago, the despot of despots!]

9. Richard II [my favorite history, a king who is both arrogant and weak, like some presidents we have known. foolish and sensitive; and those great speeches about England and "the death of kings"]

8. Comedy of Errors [my favorite tale from Charles Lamb during childhood; not such great literature, but delightful on the stage]

7. Midsummer Night's Dream [the funniest of the comedies, my favorite on the stage, and Bottom would be one of my top ten Sh. characters]

6. Macbeth [my favorite Sh. film(s), esp. Polanski's, and all those quotatable lines we had to memorize in high school]

5. As You Like It [my favorite female character, Rosalind; my favorite setting, the Forest of Arden; a genuine comedy; and those love stories--all of them]

4. The Tempest [if Comedy of Errors was the favorite story of my childhood, this is the favorite of my old age; Sir John Gielgud as Prospero is my favorite adaptation of a Sh. play; how can you beat the human non-human characters of Ariel and Caliban; if I could choose one Sh. role to play, it would be Prospero]

3. Henry IV, Part I [Falstaff, Falstaff, Falstaff=my favorite Sh. comic character, but Hotspur and Prince Hal are surely the best foils, and Henry himself as the ageing Bolingbroke; this is still one of the most pleasant plays to teach and to act out in class]

2. Hamlet [my favorite play of all to teach, so many complexities, subtleties, controversies, magical moments, so many fine film versions to compare; and my #1 Sh. character in Hamlet, both impulsive and indecisive, rational and imaginative, eloquent and inarticulate--and then there are Polonius, Horatio, Ophelia, the ghost, Gertrude, Claudius, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, Laertes, Fortinbras--they all are given center stage, even Osric and the absent Yorick]

1. Merchant of Venice [OK, the first one I ever saw in a live performance, when I was 14; from that point on Shakespeare lived on the stage, not in a book somewhere; in some ways this one is even more controversial and complex than Hamlet, esp. Shylock and Portia; I always wanted to see it in modern dress with Meryl Streep as a Southern lady Portia, the late Brock Peters as a powerful, urban, minority Shylock, and Tab Hunter in pinstripes as an ageing, effete Wall St. playboy Antonio]

And how could I have left out "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day," or "That time of year thou mayst in me behold / When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang / Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, / Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang."

OK, this was fun. Now maybe we should do it with Shakespeare's characters or Shakespearean actors or quotations -- or 19th century novels, or 20th century poets, or American movies.

Answer 2

See, the thing about Shakespeare--which is so cool--is that he changes as you change. When you're younger, you tend to like "Romeo & Juliet", "As You Like It', etc. (the comedies and romances), because the histories seem boring and the tragedies too, well, tragic...The older you get, the more you're able to connect with the complexities of life reflected in his plays.

My Top 10, in no particular order (and this is based as much on how well they play in the theatre)--the ones I'd want on that desert island:

A Midsummer Night's Dream
Much Ado About Nothing
Twelfth Night
Measure For Measure
Othello
King Lear
Hamlet
The Tempest
Ok, Romeo & Juiliet...(ah youth)
Henry IV

Runners up are probably Richard III, Winter's Tale, Henry V

Maybe I've just seen "As You Like It" too much...

Answer 3

In no particular order:

King Lear
Othello
Macbeth
Hamlet
12th Night
As You Like It
Love's Labour's Lsot
Coriolanus
Richard II
A Midsummer Night's Dream

Answer 4

MacBeth. Complete, concise and some of the best language ever penned. Just a miracle of a play.
Think of all the famous quotes from Shakespeare and you will find that many come from this short little play.

Answer 5

Well, these are the only ones I've read, but I love them:
Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Answer 6

Midsummer Nights Dream, Much ado about Nothing, and 12th Night are my top favs.

Answer 7

Midsummer's Night Dream. Every time I watch it I'm struck by how diverse and human the tale is.

Answer 8

Midsummer Night's Dream.

I find it the most magical of the plays

Answer 9

"Much Ado about Nothing" but it might be because I proposed to my wife of 33 years while working on a production of it.

Answer 10

Hamlet. Gotta go with the danes.