#Shakespeare's tragedies

[snack-size-shakespeare]

two dumb questions: 1) how many characters in the tragedies kill their partners (homoerotic nemeses do count in this case) and 2 (the more important one)) are there enough to write a parody of the cell block tango

I don't know how long ago I got this, and I feel like the asker probably needed an answer fast! But I still like the question!

But I don't think there are many!

Othello killing Desdemona in OTHELLO. She's dead for real and I hate it.

2. Richard III killing Anne in RICHARD III. Bastard.

3. Aufidius killing Martius in CORIOLANUS

4.) Claudius accidentally poisoning Gertrude in HAMLET (while trying to poison someone else).

5). Iago killing Emilia in OTHELLO. Emilia's fantastic!!! I hate it!!!!

6). Posthuman sends a literal assassin after innocent Imogen in CYMBELINE. He's lucky the assassin changes his mind and warns her!! He went a step even further than Leontes, but like Leontes, he his romantic partner lived. Speaking of....

THE UN-SPECIAL MURDEROUS MENTIONS :

Leontes comes awfully close in THE WINTER'S TALE to killing Hermione! Fortunately, he's able to hold himself back, putting her on trial instead of an actual assassin. She lives!!! It's OK!!!! I actually like Leontes, in the end!

In many RICHARD II productions, Aumerle kills Richard. The murderer in the play, Exton, comes out of nowhere at the final second, and it's kind of a letdown. Whereas Aumerle disappears after trying to put teh King (with whom he also has a homoerotic connection), and then being forced to swear loyalty to Henry IV. So it's much more compelling if he does it!

Lucrece Killing Tarquin IN the THE RAPE OF LUCRECE (one of the narrative poems). He saw her as a romantic interest. He's her rapist, and she does not see him that way. She kills him!!. It's a well-deserved, satisfying moment. That could do interesting things in a CELL BLOCK TANGO parody!

More than I thought, actually! Enough to do a CELL BLOCK TANGO parody even without the Un-Special Mentions, if you include Posthumus on "attempted". Oh, damn, now I hope someone does it....

[vaguely-problematic]

i am rewatching shakespeare's tragedies because of reasons, and now i wonder what are your favorite versions of the plays?

these are the ones i've re/watched so far-

Hamlet 2009 with patrick stewart and david tennant (i really 💗 love this one) * i DO want to see the 2015 version with maxine peake as Hamlet too * also i hear good things about the michael sheen version

Othello 1995 with laurence fishburne and kenneth branagh (this play is So Hard To Watch)

King Lear 2018 with anthony hopkins (again, really, really love)

hmmm which Macbeth should i try now?

[stingrayextraordinaire]

Another year, another group of my delightful ninth graders trying to spell the word "tragedy" for their Romeo and Juliet assignment.

Last year's collection

[itsawritblr]

OK @bookholichany now you have to exit tumblr, spin around three times, spit, curse, and then knock on tumblr's door to be allowed back in.

Photographed by Marc Brenner

All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis! All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor! All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!

[offonaherosjourney]

Last night I dreamed that someone invented a new version of chess called Rookmeo and Juliet where two rooks are in love and trying to run away together. To achieve this they have to make it to the other side of the board, but these rooks don't have any visible signs to differenciate them from the rest, just a small mark in their base. Neither of the players knows what rook from the other side is in love with their rook, so they have to play a regular game of chess, fully aware that they might unknowingly kill the lover of their rook. If they kill it, the game keeps going, but their rook betrays them, switches sides and turns into a second queen for the other player. People wrote a ton of essays about the symbolism and metaphors of that version of chess and the creator didn't have the heart to tell them that he simply invented it because he thought Rookmeo was a great pun

[tuverras]

on tragedy, fate, and inevitability.

oresteia, robert icke // theatre of the oppressed, augusto boal // song of achilles, madeline miller // the book thief, markus zusak // antigone, jean anouilh // revisiting mockingjay ahead of the hunger games prequel, entertainment weekly // romeo and juliet, shakespeare // h of h playbook, anne carson // war of the foxes, richard siken // the road to hell (reprise), hadestown // planet of love, richard siken // they both die at the end, adam silvera

[doctorhoe]

"romeo should have checked if juliet was really dead"

"orpheus just shouldn't have turned around"

"rose could have made space for jack on that door"

[withasideofshakespeare]

HOLY COW! Thank you for all the responses! I've simplified this into a Google Form to alleviate genre confusion and because graphs are wonderful and easier to make via forms! Here's that form:

Now, here are the results (as best as I could measure them) from the tags in this post!

NOTE: There was some confusion about which plays are considered to be in which genres (probably because literally nobody agrees), so I just went with whatever play someone listed first in their tags if two were in the same genre (as listed by Riverside)

Comedies: Much Ado is the winner with Twelfth Night a close second! Notes: -There were 120 total votes for the comedies -Five comedies got no votes! -People gave Measure for Measure love as a problem play, but since Riverside does not consider it to be a separate genre, those votes were not counted (for ease of my counting.)

Tragedies! Hamlet wins with Macbeth in second place! Notes: -There were 121 total votes for the tragedies -Most tragedies had at least one vote (with the exception of Timon of Athens--however, people did attempt to give Timon love as a romance! Since Riverside doesn't consider it to be one, for ease of counting, I didn't count these votes, but I'll have you know, someone out there loves Timon of Athens!)

Histories! The Richards take the lead (and Richard II wins!) Notes: -There were 100 total votes for the histories -The correlation between "plays David Tennant was in" and "plays that are Tumblr's favorites" is 100% so far

Romances! The Tempest wins! Notes: -There were only 86 total votes for the romances -There was a lot of confusion about this genre (probably because it is VERY poorly named... my Shakespeare prof has resorted to calling these late comedies/romances "the tragicomedies," which I would argue is a more fitting name!

Alright, Shakespeare fans!

I am a robber and I have broken into your house and stolen your most precious belonging. I will not give it back unless you pick just one play from each genre (comedies, tragedies, histories, romances) to call your favorite. What do you say?

(If you haven’t read any plays in a certain genre, you can forgo answering for that one.)

(History lovers: the plays count individually. Ex: you cannot say your favorite is the entirety of the Henriad)

[liones-s]

the experience of tragedy in plays specifically because ‘maybe it will end differently this time’ feels possible. This isn’t pre-recorded. This isn’t set down in time and film. This is live, this is now, these people are real and maybe this time when they open the letter it won’t say ‘kill the messenger’. Maybe this time they get to live

[the-overanalyst]

i've been reading julius caesar and i can't take the tent scene seriously at all it's like

brutus: hey maybe you shouldn't take bribes

cassius: oh i'm sorry i didn't realize you HATED ME. how dare you not think i'm a flawless human being?? why don't you just STAB ME THROUGH THE HEART it would probably hurt less

[ambxtxo]

donna tartt’s reading list

In an interview, Tartt lists her favorite authors and the names of a few works. I have listed the most popular works from each author and the specific ones she recommended as well.

Homer

The Iliad

The Odyssey

Greek Poets and Tragedians

Argonautica

Antigone

Prometheus Bound

The Oresteia

Medea

Oedipus Rex

The Bacchae

The Frogs

Dante

Inferno

Purgatorio

Paradiso

Shakespeare

“I went back and read Macbeth and Hamlet during the pandemic”

Macbeth

Hamlet

Dickens

“Dickens was a part of my familial landscape, the air I breathed.”

A Tale of Two Cities

Great Expectations

Nabokov

Pale Fire

Lolita

Proust

In Search of Lost Time

Swann’s Way

Dostoevsky

Crime and Punishment

The Brothers Karamazov

Yeats

The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats

Irish Fairy and Folk Tales

Borges

Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings

Edith Wharton

The House of Mirth

Ethan Frome

Evelyn Waugh

Brideshead Revisited

Helena

Salinger

Catcher in the Rye

Virginia Woolf

Mrs. Dalloway

Orlando

Edward St. Aubyn

The Patrick Melrose Novels

Haruki Murakami

Kafka on the Shore

Norwegian Wood

Olga Tokarczuk

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

Don DeLillo

White Noise

Underworld

W.G. Sebald

Austerlitz

The Rings of Saturn

Joan Didion

The Year of Magical Thinking

The White Album

Other Specific Books

Memoirs d’Outre-Tome by Chateaubriand

Jigsaw by Sybille Bedford

All for Nothing by Walter Kempowski

A Balcony in the Forest by Julien Gracq

[lumityfication]

fuck all of you. i will be thinking about percy quoting romeo’s “but soft what light through yonder window breaks” to annabeth when she climbed into his room at 4 am until the day i die

[stingrayextraordinaire]

My students’ adventures in trying to spell “tragedy” for their Romeo and Juliet quiz.

[sorawritesstuff]

unpopular opinion: jason todd is NOT jane austen coded. he is mary shelley, he is shakespearean tragedies, he is oedipus rex. he is a monster formed of bloodshed that yet longs to be connected to his creator, he is a man of honor and justice whose fatal flaw was nothing but circumstance, he is a victim who cannot escape his prophesized fate. in this essay i will

[grey-tumbles-and-falls-down]

hamlet production but every hamlet soliloquy he talks directly to the audience, like looks them IN THE EYES and talk to them like a preacher to the church !!!! He finds solace in knowing that there are people that can see what he is seeing, knowing that theres always people he can talk to that wont even have the chance to tell anyone in the play his plans. Also in said production he often says his asides or what he's saying to himself to the crowd. Like in Act l when he says "a little more than kin and less than kind." he says that TOO THE CROWD like a silly little comedian.

also to theif and steal this post, in the ending scene horatio 100% looks up and finally sees what hamlet was seeing and he finally understands.

I'll come back to this if ive got more truth to preach

[nemesyaaa]

AND I SAID " ROMEO TAKE ME SOMEWHERE WE CAN BE ALONE."

AND MY DADDY SAID " STAY AWAY FROM JULIET. "

“ I TALKED TO YOUR DAD, GO PICK OUT A WHITE DRESS. IT'S A LOVE STORY, BABY, JUST SAY "YES. ”

🌹 it was a tragedy but you were already hooked. if you die for me, i would die for you, as he always murmurs in your ears.

romeo!jj who knelt down for you the first time he saw you in that rose garden, on one of his knee, dressed in his shining silver armor. he was a fallen prince that reached for his sinned princess.

romeo!jj who complimented your sublime, long dress, a gift from your father, but who wanted to see you without it.

romeo!jj who helped you lace up your corset, but had to refrain from touching you in front of your servants every time your breasts bounced above the cleavage.

romeo!jj who helped you undo your dress, sliding the threads through his hands, while kissing your skin every time he undid a lace.

romeo!jj who liked to irritate your father because he was young and arrogant. romeo!jj who showed up at balls where he is not invited, drinks from the cup of wine of your dad before throwing it on the ground, and sneaking among the guests to find you. you. the woman he seeks and wants. romeo!jj who kicked out all the dance partners you had, just because he was the only one who can make you dance.

romeo!jj who fighting your father with his precious sword in front of everyone, while making you dance. he was meticulous, his blade never touched you.

romeo!jj who may loose the fight but will end up finding you on your balcony later while you wait for him in the light of the moon.

romeo!jj who kissed you passionately, with the love you deserved. romeo!jj who was all dirty after a long battle, messy sweaty hair that smell victory, bruises on his pretty young face, and blood but who refused to be far away from you.

you were his juliet to whom he wrote love letters with ink stains but you loved to smell his scent in every word.

romeo!jj who was not a music lover but such a fan of hearing you play the harp late at night.

you had tried to teach him but his hands were always somewhere other than on the tiny fragile ropes.

romeo!jj who forced you to leave your prison while your parents slept to take you to have fun. you threw yourself off the balcony and he caught you in his arms. but often complained about the size of your dress. sometimes, jj fantasized about seeing his princess in silver armor.

you had tried to push him away dozens of times, but it never worked because he was stronger than you at this game. romeo!jj wanted you, and even if he had to have the world against him , it didn't matter, because he would let this world burn for his only love.

romeo!jj who fought duels with all his rivals, and who took pleasure in capturing you whenever he could. he had a big white horse and took you for rides. sometimes he dreamed of being an evil prince and kidnapping you, and locking you in a giant tower. but you were too beautiful in his eyes to be hidden from the world.

you were his juliet, the one to whom he revealed his scars, to whom he let see his weaknesses, his true nature, weak and sensitive.

you were his juliet and he agreed to cry in front of you because of his father.

you were his juliet, a sin. but he was in love. no matter how much hell tormented him, he would descend there for your beautiful eyes.

he was your romeo, and he taught you how to use the sword, one hand on your waist, and another on his weapon. romeo!jj who had engraved the initials of your name on his blade.

he made you a soldier capable of fighting, but you remained his princess who would never be able to kill anyone. but you didn't have to worry, that was his favorite part. fighting for you.

he was dressed to kill every person that pissed you, and make him jealous, and you were dressed to be his favorite pure and soft angel. and in the future, his perfect wife.

romeo!jj who knew how much your families hated each other but couldn't stay away from you for more than five minutes. romeo!jj who planned to run away with you.

romeo!jj who knelt in front of you one day, “will you marry me ?” with the most precious ring in his hand. romeo!jj who had found nothing better than to make you cry on your birthday with his surprise. romeo!jj who wanted nothing more than for you to be his.

even if your father humiliated him yesterday because a capulet would never marry a montague. that the blood of your family was superior to others. that he would never have you.

there had been another fight between the two. he never gave up, even when your father placed a blade against his throat, forcing jj to go on his knees. you begged your father to not kill him. while you cried your heart out, jj's blood stained your dress, he whispered in your ear.

“ already in tears for me? i didn't fuck you well yet. don't be a crybaby, princess. your romeo will not die tonight. ”

you wanted to hit him. but you smiled at him when he got up.

but you knew that his own father had also beaten him for this betrayal and shame that was your love for each other.

“ my father is going to kill you.” you said with a soft voice, your fingers stucked in his blonde curls, while he was on his knees, his hands on your waist covered by your big princess dress. and his eyes all over you.

“you are the only one capable of killing me. and you've already done it a million times.”

“ don't die, jj. i forbid you. you think you can conquer everything like achilles, but you will die because of your ego. you are young and i still need you."

" you trust me ? "

"my father is a monster. he won't be afraid to kill you."

" are you afraid of dying with me?"

“nothing scares me more than dying without you., jj. ”

but you had let yourself be blinded by love and happiness, you could never have known, neither you nor jj, that it was the last time you kissed his cold and bruised lips.

and the saddest part was that you died without knowing where your romeo was. you had both been consumed.

you had forgotten god, and you had been punished with jj for that.

credits to @daddldee for the dividers <33 moodboards was made by me. and i'm proud fr 😭 yes, it's inspired by love story/white horse by taylor swift, dont ask me why 😔 i dont think it's really angst but yes, both jj and reader die at the end💀