What is Shakespeare's hardest work to understand?

Question

The most complicated "Shakesperean" language EVER!

Answer 1

Offhand, I can't single out one in particular, but I think as a group the sonnets are probably his most challenging works. While the plays present occasional obscure words or references, it's generally easy enough to get the gist of what's going on. The sonnets are short, tightly crafted, and often subtle and obscure, making it tough sometimes to puzzle out what's being said.

Answer 2

Love's Labour's Lost has a lot of archaic language and intellectual references. I think it's one of the hardest, but very enjoyable if you can get through it. I haven't ever read his narrative poems (Venus and Adonis, The Passionate Pilgrim or the Rape of Lucrece). I imagine they're more difficult since there is no dramatic action attatched to it.

Answer 3

SONNET 99
-Perhaps because it is the only sonnet with 15 lines:

The forward violet thus did I chide:
Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,
If not from my love's breath? The purple pride
Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells
In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed.
The lily I condemned for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair:
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair;
A third, nor red nor white, had stol'n of both
And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath;
But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth
A vengeful canker eat him up to death.
More flowers I noted, yet I none could see
But sweet or colour it had stol'n from thee

Heck! Does "Sweet thief" refer to the "Fair Youth" or "Dark Lady" of his sonnets? What about the "his" in "But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth/A vengeful canker eat him up to death."

What is/are "vengeful canker" and "buds of marjoram"?

Answer 4

Coriolanus.

Answer 5

For me the easiest was "Macbeth," followed by "Hamlet," and then "Julius Ceasar." Since I never read it, I would say "Love's Labour's Lost."

Answer 6

Jar is right: Coriolanus

Jar wins

Answer 7

I think that ALL of his stuff is hard to understand!!!