*i didn't actually read this collection: this book is being used as "all shakespeare ever written."*

after finishing a blissful little re read of The Tempest, i hopped over to goodreads to review it... and literally experienced an existential crisis.



why, you may ask? i realized -horror of horrors- i haven't shelved a single shakespeare play on here. and im walking around saying he's my favorite author!!!

so i compiled, firstly, a list of the shakespeare i've read, so i could shelve and review it. let's see.

1. The Tempest
2. Julius Caesar
3. Macbeth
4. The Taming of the Shrew
5. Romeo and Juliet

hm. it feels like i've read more than that. i guess because i've seen them performed or read abridged versions of them. ah.



and that's when i had a ✨brilliant idea!✨ i could make this year *drumroll* The Year Of The Great Shakespeare Tbr!



truly a great plan, considering i already have a huge tbr, am currently in a reading slump, and have school things to read, not to mention im in multiple plays and have a million other miscellaneous things to do right now. and god knows what this year is even going to look like anyways. but i decided to go for it.

here is my grand plan.

☽ read the original versions of ☾
-As You Like It
-Much Ado About Nothing
-A Midsummer Nights Dream
-The Two Noble Kinsman
-A Winter's Tale
-Hamlet
-Othello
-Antony and Cleopatra
-Henry VIII
-The Merry Wives of Windsor

☽ memorize a monologue from ☾
- A Midsummer Nights Dream or Much Ado About Nothing
- The Two Noble Kinsman (there's this great lesbian romance monologue from a bi character i loveeee and need to learn)
-Hamlet or Macbeth depending on what i find and like. then, what with my marc antony speech, i will have a comedic, romantic, historic, and tragic monologue!

*theater nerd moment* heh

anyways. on with the plan:

☽ read retellings of/acquire more knowledge of ☾
-Pericles, Prince Of Tyre
-The Two Gentlemen of Verona
-All's Well That Ends Well
-Titus Andronicus
-The Merchant Of Venice
-All the Henrys (or Henries? Idk)
-King Lear

☽ ignore ☾
-King John
-Corialanus
-Anything I Forgot

and there you are. the grand will-use-up-valuble-time-until-i-forget-about-it-and-it-is-never-seen-again plan!! woohoo!



also, i have a feeling a lot of my "read the original versions of" books will transfer to the last list over time. just to prepare you for that.

tl;dr: im going to try (and fail) to read, memorize, and learn about more shakespeare. despite my busy schedule and already-huge tbr. THIS IS A VERY BAD IDEA. KIDS, DONT TRY THIS AT HOME.

Blame It On West Side Story…

It was nearly the ending of summer, and I was then still eleven. Was playing basketball with my brother and friends. Came into the house for a cold drink and a snack.

Heard my sister and her friends making happy sounds.
Decided I should investigate. They were watching a movie called “West Side Story.”

I heard lots of fun music, saw lots of fun dancing. Although covered in dirt and smelly with sweat, decided to invite myself in and squeezed between two people.

Heard about a song called Maria, Jet Song, Tonight, America, Gee, Officer Krupke, I Feel Pretty and others.

There was the beautiful Maria (who, strangely enough, didn’t look Puerto Rican). There was a gorgeous man named Bernardo. My tomboy days were over.

Dear mother noticed my happy obsession and told me about two young teenagers named Romeo and Juliet. A play written by William Shakespeare. Two kids in love with love

The Godfather of the Stars

William Shakespeare did not invent the English language. He didn't dream up most of the stories he wrote in his plays and poetry. Much of it he expounded on from history and myth. Much of the human nature exhibited could be witnessed on any given day in the taverns and churches of Europe. A good deal of the morality and tone is structured on the Bible and Christian moral tones. (Much has been written about Shakespeare and the Bible as an individual topic, because the Bishop's Bible was the one read in the church services he would have attended. And, you can see its influence.) But, as Mr. Shakespeare himself in Love's Labour's Lost, referred to astronomers as 'the godfathers of the stars;' Shakespeare gave names to all our human griefs, joys, sorrows, tragedies, and loves. He named the human soul with his plays.

Remarkably, what most appears from the great richness of the pen of 'the Bard' is the beloved characters with which he has peopled the world of our imaginations. I can see them now with my eyes open. (If I may here address the characters from the pages of Mr. Shakespeare's great work...)

Why come on in King Henry V. You were so anxious to take up your crown from your dead Father's bed, young man, so you will be first in the room. With all your mistakes, you lit the stage in your moments of glorious triumph. Whether watching you slay brave Hotspur in hand-to-hand combat, or rise above the folly of your youth... I could forgive your eagerness to devour the lands of France. I couldn't help but wonder in amazement how your great General Talbot, who outlived you into the story of Henry VI, remained as the last of his age, a lasting legacy of your greatness.

Ho, you there Shylock the Jew, from The Merchant of Venice! You are in excellent company with the likes of this young King Harry, are you not?! Yet, your race dictated that you would be the villain of your story, to King Henry's hero. My heart boils with the injustice you were served. Perhaps, you should have been more eager to forgive your 'pound of flesh' debt while you were 'in the way' with your enemy. Instead of learning to curse your enemies from the fallen Queen Margaret, (Henry VI's French Queen) you should have taken other tutors.

Take Prospero there from The Tempest, he is an apt example of forgiving and for getting a son-in-law from his enemy. (Come closer blithe Ariel, I can barely see you.) Katherine of Aragon remained graceful, in the face of great wrong, when her husband King Henry VIII divorced her. Yet, I see you too, who would not forgive and forget: Othello, you Moor of Venice, quick to love and quicker to hatred. You murdered an innocent wife. Tamora, captive Queen of the Goths, your revenge brought down all those around you. The poison of your vengeance you drank from the cup of un-forgiveness General Titus served you when he would not spare your son. Tell me, Titus. Did you know, when you silenced the captive Queen that your sons would be silenced from defense before banishment, you silenced before execution, and your daughter...? So much silence reverberates through the centuries.

I have few words with which to instruct any of you great characters. But, I see the Fool there from King Lear's stage. He will have plenty to say, and of so much wisdom that we all should be glad to listen for hours to your good advice. It was such a pity that neither King Lear nor his daughters learned anything from you.

'Lay on Macduff!' I'll have a word with you there in the shadows. Whose wisdom pointed you to young Malcolm to woo him to his father's deadly sepulcher of a throne? Didn't Malcolm himself tell you that he just knew all the evil that would come from himself if he had so much power as a crown upon his head?! Blood cries out for more blood, I suppose. (I'm looking at the two of you Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.)

Poor, troubled Hamlet, yet you took time to verify that the visions tormenting you were truly the ghost of your father, before confronting your uncle. Too bad your ending couldn't have been less rotten in Denmark. Falstaff, you were such a 'false staff' for your young friend the Prince. You should have known better at your age, yet you died in your folly after he rose to the throne.

Enough! Away with you all, and back to the pages, 'ere I close this heavy book!

Dear prospective readers of Shakespeare, let me say a bit about this and that and the other before I leave you with some quotes across the spectrum, and video links. The play that seemed to lack the most was the last, Henry VIII. There, all that was really interesting was the wives... of course... why else read Henry VIII, but to see his wives? And, they were notable. The play that shines the most to me now is that of Pericles and his daughter Marina who was born in a tempest. That is indeed a fascinating tale for all ages! The other that I would mention is Queen Elizabeth herself. Picture the Queen of England sitting before the stage, listening to the great Shakespeare tell her stories of her grandparents. I imagine the little princess inside her marveled as he swept her away with his wonderful way of making sense and destiny of all that has come before us on this great stage.

I first read all of Shakespeare's plays in school. Some, I have re-read more than others over the years. Now, reading all of his work at once again so many decades later, I found I did not read alone. I was turning the pages and reading the words with my aging eyes, but there beside me was the same preteen who marveled at Julius Caesar's tale with such impression. I read it with different eyes now, but the same awe is there. It is a great work. I read this from a huge hardback leather edition that is in chronological order, instead of the usual division between folios. I liked it better this way, and still yet, I find I liked the comedies the least.

I found that Amazon Prime has a variety of Shakespeare streaming productions available, most for free. They are faithful to the written script. Some are even recorded on a live stage. The two that I recommend most are The Macbeth with Patrick Stewart, even though it is sandwiched into a 'Hitler-like' scenario; and the production of Pericles, which is visually fascinating. Oh... the Julius Caesar is a must watch as well!

Here are the links and quotes I mentioned:
BBC Shakespeare Julius Caesar
Macbeth
Pericles

"I'd rather keep that which I have than coveting for more, be cast from possibility of all." -King Richard VI

"A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!" - King Richard III

"We owe God a death." - King Henry IV

"The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness And time to speak it in. You rub the sore when you should bring the plaster." - The Tempest

"I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, straining upon the start. The games' afoot: Follow your spirit;" -Henry V

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;" -Henry V

"I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;" -Richard II

"The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn no traveler returns," - Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

"If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?" -Shylock the Jew in The Merchant of Venice

"Why man, he doth bestride the narrow world Like a Colossus; and we petty men Walk under his huge legs, and peep about To find ourselves dishonourable graves. Men at some time are masters of their fates" -Cassius to Brutus in Julius Caesar

"There is a world elsewhere." -Coriolanus

"If there be fire before me, must I straightway run to burn myself?" Marina in Pericles

"Who worse than a physician would this report become? But I consider by medicine life may be prolong'd, Yet death will seize the doctor too." -Cymbeline

"Ill deeds is doubled with an evil word." - Luciana in The Comedy of Errors

"These earthy godfathers of heaven's lights, that give a name to every fixed star, have no more profit of their shining nights Than those that walk and wot not what they are. Too much to know, is to know naught but fame; and every godfather can give a name." Love's Labours' Lost

"Everyone can master a grief but he that has it." -Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing

"Sweet are the uses of adversity, which like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head." - As you Like It

"Shame to him whose cruel striking kills for faults of his own liking! Twice treble shame on Angelo, To weed my vice and let his grow!" - Measure for Measure

"A lady's verily is as potent as a lord's." -Hermione in The Winter's Tale

"It is an heretic that makes the fire, Not she which burns in't." -Paulina in The Winter's Tale

"The game is up!" - Cymbeline

"Now my old arms are young John Talbot's grave." - Old Talbot in King Henry VI

"Superfluity come sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer." - The Merchant of Venice

"To be or not to be, that is the question." - Hamlet

"Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love." - Hamlet

If the question is "do you recommend Shakespeare?" the answer would be of course, in what universe would he not be recommended?
So I guess the one that would get any conversation whatsoever would be "would you recommend I read the complete works"? Well it certainly is a ride, a journey, there's quite a bit of stuff in here. One thing I'll say is I'm still not entirely convinced of literature's claim on Shakespeare because when I read these plays there's a yearning for performance, for interpretation, for blocking, for I suppose theatrics. Even so much as reading it aloud immediately transforms it, the wordplay comes to the forefront, sentences that seem to run on too long flow like they were meant for it, everything comes alive. Shakespeare's a theater man through and through. The bit that gets lost in reverse metamorphosis from stage to page is most apparent in the comedies. If I were to dissuade someone from reading this, a few of the comedies would be why. Not only do half of them recycle the same tropes and setups, but the wordplay, the slapstick, the puns, they're placid and lifeless on the page where on stage they would flourish. Though at worst I never thought "this is bad", just that "this isn't grabbing me".
But if I were to recommend this to someone it would be for the surprises, the things you don't think would grab you, the things you might never have read on your own if it weren't part of this whole. For me this was Measure for Measure, and Coriolanus, and the histories which read like one cohesive arc when all read at once, and the sonnets, oh lord the sonnets. The sonnets are a treat after reading the 37 plays, they are the most personal connection to Shakespeare, the most candid thoughts of his that exist in print. He muses on love and death and art and insecurity and even makes dorky puns based off of his name Will, the sonnets humanize him. They flow almost as if meant to be read in the order they're presented and they act as the perfect coda to his other works.
Overall if you feel like making the plunge, I can at least assure I'm glad I did.

January:
1. Two Gentlemen of Verona (1589–1591) - January 1, 2017
2 The Taming of the Shrew (1590–1591) - January 5, 2017
3 Henry VI, Part 2 (1591) - February 1, 2017

February:
4 Henry VI, Part 3 (1591) - February 3, 2017
5 Henry VI, Part 1 (1591–1592) - January 21, 2017
6 Titus Andronicus (1591–1592) - February 9, 2017

March:
7 Richard III (1592–1593) - March 4, 2017
8. The Comedy of Errors (1594) - March 11, 2017
9. Love's Labour's Lost (1594–1595) - March 27, 2017

April:
10. Richard II (1595) - April 7, 2017
11. Romeo and Juliet (1595) - April 12, 2017
12. A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595) - April 21, 2017

May:
13. King John (1596) - May 3, 2017
14. The Merchant of Venice (1596–1597) - May 8, 2017
15. Henry IV, Part 1 (1596-1597) - May 20, 2017

June:
16. The Merry Wives of Windsor (1597) - June 20, 2017
17. Henry IV, Part 2 (1597-1598) - June 24, 2017
18. Much Ado About Nothing (1598-1599) - June 25, 2017

July:
19. Henry V (1599) - July 5, 2017
20. Julius Caesar (1599) - July 10, 2017
21. As You Like It (1599-1600) - July 26, 2017

August:
22. Hamlet (1600-1601)- August 12, 2017
23. Twelfth Night (1601) - August 15, 2017
24. Troilus and Cressida ((1600–1602) - August 29, 2017

September:
25. Measure for Measure (1603-1604) - September 6, 2017
26. Othello (1603-1604) - September 15, 2017
27. All's Well that Ends Well (1604-1605) - September 12, 2017

October:
28. King Lear (1605–1606) - October 19, 2017
29. Timon of Athens (1605–1606) - October 20, 2017
30. Macbeth (1606) - October 28, 2017

November:
31. Antony and Cleopatra (1606) - November 17, 2017
32. Coriolanus (1608) - November 23, 2017
33. The Winter's Tale (1609–1611) - November 25, 2017

December:
34. Cymbeline (1610) - December 11, 2017
35. The Tempest (1610–1611) - December 12, 2017
36. Henry VIII (1612–1613) - December 16, 2017

Other:
Pericles, Prince of Tyre (1607–1608) - November 21, 2017
The Sonnets (1609) - December 19, 2017
The Two Noble Kinsmen (1613–1614) - December 19, 2017
The Narrative Poems (1593-1594) - December 23, 2017

tAs famous as the great poet is, I believe that his works are rarely read and recognized too little. The Complete Works of Shakespeare is as the title says, all the works of Shakespeare. This, in my sense, let me understand better about his writing. Two important things that William Shakespeare efficiently accomplished were the superb plots and fitting the outline of the iambic pentameter. One thing that most successful writers have are good plotlines. This talent isn’t something anyone can acquire. Also, I have learned that the iambic pentameter type poem is very hard to make, having a specific pattern to a specific number of syllables. For an ordinary person, it might have taken their lifetime to write about five stories, in which Shakespeare wrote around 37 plays. This needs a remarkable amount of effort and energy, and that is why I believe that more people should acknowledge his works more.

Very heavy. Do not read in bath. Oh, and some great plays.

My reading Shakespeare journey is complete!

I started with the plays back in 2010, and then again in 2015. It took me until the end of 2018 to finish all of the plays, and it was quite an amazing journey. I found that I am a sucker for the tragedies but don't often love the comedies. Histories were hit and miss, I loved Henry the Fourth Parts I & II, Henry V and Richard III. In fact, Richard III is in the running for my all time favourite, up there with Macbeth and King Lear. I have a side project to watch adaptations of all the plays, which is taking longer than I thought (some aren't done very often), but it's been a fun experience as well.

After I finished the plays, I took a break from reading Shakespeare. Than in 2019 I thought it was time to finish off the complete works! So I tucked into reading the sonnets and the poems, and the last thing to read was The Phoenix and Turtle (just 1 page!) on April 23rd - Shakespeare's Birthday! It felt like a fitting time to complete the journey.

A most beautiful and aesthetically pleasing book.
Not quite complete as it lacks The Two Noble Kinsmen.

Well that was a quick read--for Yale’s recently departed Harold Bloom, who could read 400 pages an hour and recall them with his photographic memory. Long ago I vowed to read all of Shakespeare as I thought it would get easier and more rewarding with age. So I recently bought Longman’s door stop because I liked the binding and it includes 200+ pages of commentary by Shakespearean scholar David Bevington. One of my 2020 New Year’s resolutions is to read at least one or two works a year, so I will be gradually adding entries to this review.

“HAMLET” 5 January 2020
I decided to start with “Hamlet” because I just read a biography of John Quincy Adams and it was his favorite work. At 4000 lines, it is Shaekespeare’s longest play. Harold Bloom considers “Hamlet” to be “the most extraordinary single work of Western literature that I have ever read” (2003 PBS interview).

Reading “Hamlet” cold without brushing up on my Elizabethan English made for tough sledding, but my first reward was discovering that my favorite literary quote came from this work: “This above all: to thine own self be true” (1.3). I still can’t appreciate iambic pentameter, but I know a good couplet when I see it:
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.
Words without thoughts never to heaven go. (3.4)
To my great surprise, neither of these lines are uttered by Hamlet.

I didn’t find Bevington’s supporting commentary to be as enlightening as I had expected, so I then read Bloom’s 17 pages on Hamlet in “How to Read and Why” (2000). Bloom’s final thought is my favorite, “Whether we ourselves expect annihilation or resurrection, we are likely to end caring about our name. Hamlet, the most charismatic and intelligent of all fictive characters, prefigures our hopes for courage at our common end” (p. 217-8).

I concluded my reintroduction to Shakespeare by watching Lawrence Oliver’s wonderful interpretation and modest abbreviation of “Hamlet” (1948). Pure joy. Let me know if you find a better way to spend 2.5 hours on YouTube!

Have I read this book? Only part of it.

Even so, why argue about that rating?

See bottom of review for a list of the plays in order

What follows is little more than the GoodReads description of the edition pictured. But I feel I can do that, since I wrote the description.

This tome includes all 37 of Shakespeare's plays, as well as his poems and sonnets. It was produced "for college students in the hope that it will help them to understand, appreciate, and enjoy the works for themselves. It is not intended for the scholar ..."

Two-column format throughout.

Introductory Material (90 pages):
1. The Universality of Shakespeare
2. Records of the Life of Shakespeare
3. Shakespeare's England
4. Elizabethan Drama
5. The Elizabethan Playhouse
6. The Study of the Text
7. The Development of Shakespeare's Art
8. Shakespeare and the Critics
9. Shakespearean Scholarship and Criticism 1900-1950

Plates:
16 full-page Halftone Reproductions
6 full-page Line Cuts
9 pages of Notes on the Plates

The Plays:
Generally in order of writing.
Each play has its own Introduction
Footnotes at the bottom of the columns. This makes them both handy and unobtrusive. Liked by this reader.

Appendices follow The Poems:
30 Appendices in about the same number of pages; these deal with a wide variety of topics, everything from "The Melancholic Humor" to "Cuckolds and Horns" to "Hawks and Hawking".

I don't know how it compares with other editions of Shakespeare's works. It is the one I have.

Here are Shakespeare's 37 plays, in the order presented in this edition. This is the best guess (at the time the edition was printed) of the order in which they were written, when on my no-longer-young journey I read the play, and links to my review. (It will take several years for this quest to be completed.)

1. The First Part of King Henry the Sixtht
2. The Second Part of King Henry the Sixtht
3. The Third Part of King Henry the Sixtht
4. The Tragedy of King Richard the Third _2017_Apr.t
5. The Comedy of Errorst
6. The Tragedy of Titus Andronicust
7. The Taming of the Shrew _2017_Apr.t
8. The Two Gentlemen of Veronat
9. Love's Labor's Lostt
10. The Tragedy of King Richard the Second _2016_Aug.t
11. The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliett
12. A Midsummer Night's Dream _2014_Feb.t
13. The Life and Death of King John _2016_Apr.t
14. The Merchant of Venicet
15. The First Part of King Henry the Fourtht
16. The Second Part of King Henry the Fourtht
17. Much Ado About Nothingt _2016_Jan.t
18. The Life of King Henry the Fiftht
19. As You Like It _2015_Feb.t
20. The Tragedy of Julius Caesar _2017_Oct.t
21. Twelfth Night; or What You Willt
22. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarkt
23. The Merry Wives of Windsort
24. The Tragedy of Troilus and Cressidat
25. All's Well That Ends Well _2015_June
26. The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venicet
27. Measure For Measuret
28. The Tragedy of King Leart
29. The Tragedy of Macbetht
30. The Tragedy of Anthony and Cleopatrat
31. The Tragedy of Coriolanust
32. Timon of Athenst
33. Pericles _2016_Oct.t
34. Cymbelinet
35. The Winter's Talet
36. The Tempest _2017_July
37. The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Previous review: The Once and Future King T.H. White's Arthurian fantasy
Random review: King John Wm.Shakespeare
Next review:  Understanding Power  Noam Chomsky

Previous library review: Verbivoracious Festschrift Vol. 3 The Syllabus
Next library review: Shakespeare: The world as stage Bill Bryson

My beloved Complete Shakespeare from college into which I occasionally dip. I have only read certain plays and a few sonnets. Have not nearly completed my education in the Bard, but I like knowing it's there.

May 28, 2015: re-read Hamlet. Still not my favorite. I've always wished I liked or at least appreciated it more. This weekend will re-watch Kenneth Branaugh's "full-text" film, hoping for the "aha" moment.