/lit/ - Literature

>>22816265
sall greek 2 me

>>22816265
King Richard III

Henry IV part one

>>22816265
>I want to read one play by Shakespeare next year.
dont set the bar too high anon

>>22816317
I have plenty of time left on this rock. I want to read a diverse array of /lit/ throughout each year.

>>22816334
That's retarded. It's Shakespeare.

>>22816265
Romeo and Juliet.

>>22816340
What, you just read his plays straight through? You don't analyze them, contemplate them, commonplace parts of them, and most importantly you don't watch dramatizations? I suppose if I was going to speed read his work you might have a point.

>>22816349
I do all of that. I dont see why you would stop at one play, it isnt some monumental task. You are clearly a dilettante anyway or not a actual reader, or maybe very young. You havent even read Shakespeare, kid. Dont act like you know what youre talking about.

Read the sonnets

>>22816464
They DEFINITELY should not be read first.

I read Hamlet and Othello (I started some others but didn't finish them), both are incredible and easy to understand. My interpretation is that Shakespeare writes about being human so, as far as you are so, you are all set

>>22816479
Hamlet is incredible and there's so much in it, it is his longest play I believe.

>>22816265
>I want to read one play by Shakespeare next year. What do you recommend /lit/?

No sense setting unrealistic goals. When you fail you'll only get dispirited. Try to read one act of one play next year.

I can recommend Act 1 of Hamlet. I personally read it this year, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I hope to read Act 2 in 2024. I can't wait to see how the story turns out!

>>22816490
Kek this.

Are there plays one should definitely not read before having read some others first? I have read only Macbeth and I really liked it. Thinking about reading Othello soon.

>>22816490
Alright fucking genius, we can't all read that quickly.

>>22816490
>No sense setting unrealistic goals
Why the fuck are people saying this? We're talking about Shakespeare, not Weil. He is intentionally easy to understand, he wanted to become popular and respected so he strove for greatness, not complexity. Yes, his plays are multifaceted but that doesn't make them difficult

>>22816512

>>22816490
Yea I do this with the gym too, 1973 I go once a week, 1974 twice a week, and so on and so on until I went 50x a week this year and the gains have never been better. (I am going to die soon)

>>22816512
I really hope this is advanced double ironic shitposting and you aren't retarded

>>22816598
>50x a week and none of them leg days
Alas poor glutes! I knew them well

>>22816345
This is the one to start with anon.

>>22816265
anyone else feel let down by Hamlet? I didn't see introspection as much as I did Hamlet being psychotic and fucking with people. Almost like a psychological adventure story

It takes a couple of days at most to SLOWLY read one of his plays. You should read more than one, and if you do, you'll be left with plenty of time to reread them and do whatever else you want with them.

>>22817036
Did you even finish the play?

>>22817036
No

>>22816265
King Lear is my favorite by far, but, I'm not totally literate in Shakespeare. I actually dislike a lot of what I've read, but King Lear stood out as some special shit.

>>22817036
I thought King Lear was better by a mile
that play was like a psychedelic trip the jester and shit. its so good. i may reread it today

>>22817139
Yeah, I guess I just didn't 'get it'. Maybe because it's so ubiquitous that I've seen that story a hundred times. Wish I could appreciate it like other anons do. Maybe I was just seeing it from a plot perspective, though I don't know what other way to take it

>>22816265
The Tempest
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Hamlet

>>22816265
Lear!
Lear!
Lear!
Lear!

>>22817204
There's so much in it, which isn't in the popular story of Hamlet, that you should have seen for the first time. It seems you didn't spend enough time on each line, the poetic beauty, or psychological subtlety, of it, which is what Shakespeare is famous for. He can express so much in line, almost no line deserves missing. And taking a major example of the plot, what about Hamlet's change in temperament towards the end of the play? He accepts death, whenever it may come. Didn't you notice that development?

>>22816483
This anon is correct and has won the debate

>>22816349
you're such a faggot dude. post notes on the last book you read. i bet it'll give me a nice laugh

>>22819672
You first and then I will. Otherwise you're the faggot.

>>22816265
I just read A Midsummer Night's Dream for the first time this year, anon. It was so fun! I recommend Hamlet as well, of course. As soon as I finish Agamemnon, I intend to read King Lear and Coriolanus. You may join me in spirit, by doing the same, if you wish. I'm sure our solidarity, however distant would amplify the fruits of our inquest.

>>22817185
>>22817306
>>22817888
>Lear
>The Tempest
These are the pièce de résistance of his career, they should be read after most of his other works. Nothing nothing gets better.

>>22820112
>The Tempest
I'm not OP, but I'll take your recommendation and therefore add The Tempest after Coriolanus.

>>22816265
>reading plays
Listen here you gigantic faggot, they are PLAYS. You should watch them, in a theater, this is like reading an entire movie script or watching someone else play a video game. This isn’t how they are meant to be experienced

>>22820188
but what if i just imagine the play in my mind

Should I read Chaucer before Shakespeare?

>>22820188
>total fucking retard enters the thread
Plays are distinguished from movie scripts by their literary quality and self-sufficiency. The fact that you could even equate them shows that you belong on /tv/ and not /lit/. Most performances cannot hope to do justice to Shakespeare, in those cases the only superiority watching has over reading, and using your imagination, is seeing the standards of theatrical performance, but in most cases they don't even resemble the standards of Shakespeare's day. So most performances only LOWER Shakespeare's words below their value. That said, a truly great performance of Shakespeare will always trump reading. Because it was meant to be performed. But that in no way negates what can only be got from reading, the fine study of details and a deeper understanding of his art. You're moronic if you think Shakespeare hasn't ALWAYS been read, even aside from the historical evidence. One would have to assume that Shakespeare has no poetic value and that it is impossible to portray the drama in your minds eye. Both of which are self-evidently wrong.

i agree with the anons who say shakespeare should be seen and not read, at least on your first viewing of his works. check out the BBC television shakespeare series, it's quite good. start with his comedies as they're pretty underrated and fun. my favorites are as you like it and all's well that ends well. julius caesar is great but a bit overrated as it does drone on in some parts.

>>22820217
Unless you really want to... no, there's no reason to do that. You can start with Shakespeare if you prefer.
Truth be told there's never much reason to read any book before another book except in the cases where you want to slowly expose yourself to more difficult books. So it makes sense to read Camus before Proust, for example if you're learning French or to read Kant before Hegel if you're getting into philosophy. That's merely a confidence thing, like slowly getting to a deep end of a swimming pool etc. Reading literature chronologically would be autistic and a bit of a meme. Even when people used to be taught classical languages at young ages they read Virgil, Horace and Ovid before they ever read Greek, so people have never been able to approach the canon exactly chronologically. Just read according to your inclination, as Dr Johnson recommended.

>>22820263
Thank you for the encouraging post. Yeah, I’m learning French because I want to read Balzac, Nerval, Flaubert in the original, but I will definitely not read Flaubert before reading Maupassant’s short stories lol.
But as for Shakespeare himself, there are some plays that are less technically refined, maybe, and are good works to begin with, no?

>>22820220
>but in most cases they don't even resemble the standards of Shakespeare's day
The rest of this post is reasonable enough but you're basing this particular assumption off prejudicial nostalgic assumptions about the past not actually based in fact. During Elizabethan/Jacobean period they didn't perform plays with the kind of rehearsal periods that we now have, and runs of plays didn't last very long. They used to learn plays in a morning, run them the next day and then do another play the day after. No doubt their short term memory and energy was incredibly impressive to do this but there probably wouldn't have been the same introspective quality that we are used to expecting from performance now, it was probably quite external. And stage acting in London wasn't as glamorous as it is now. Perhaps there would've been stand-out good actors in Shakespeare's time like Burbage but the height of Shakespearean acting was probably the 20th century.

>>22820305
>but the height of Shakespearean acting was probably the 20th century.
I would say 19th century, but the 20th century isn't far behind. And then there was Garrick in the 18th century. The 21st century has no actor of Garrick's genius.

But your post only confirms what I said, albeit circuitously. The theatre of Shakespeare's day was very different from our own, and one cannot assume entirely or even mostly negatively. You praise their memory and energy, and there was probably a lot more to praise. It's difficult to imagine a great dramatic period without great dramatic performances. So when you have a modern player stumbling around mumbling, and you get the sense you're not watching theatre but some bum on the street, theatre cannot claim the value of teaching you how Shakespeare performances go, good or bad.

>>22816265
If you must do only one, do Hamlet.
But I recommend reading A Midsummer Nights Dream. Whimsy, nigga.

>>22820188
And yet, it is their original form, and the way the actors themselves must first experience it.