#i also had a hard time w love's labor's lost for comedies. idk i just didn't connect w any of the characters tho the premise is interesting | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

britneyshakespeare · 1 month

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i'm very interested what ppl find to be the harder shakespeare plays and which they found to be easier. bc i was googling out of curiosity and i found a sparknotes article (link if you're curious) that ranked ten of the most commonly-read plays on difficulty and it put king lear kinda down low whereas it put julius caesar pretty high because of the politics/complicated conflicts. that kind of baffled me because julius caesar was the first tragedy i read outside of the classroom and i found it very approachable; it's one i often recommend to people trying to get into shakespeare because the plot is already familiar to most ppl and you can just enjoy the poetry and how shakespeare chooses to characterize these figures. on the other hand i read king lear a few years later in my shakespeare journey, and to be honest i still kind of have a hard time with lear. maybe i just don't connect with it on some level; i'm not sure. it's not a very tightly-organized play where the action is as centered as in the other tragedies like hamlet or macbeth. that's certainly a me thing and maybe that'll change with age. but i'm always a little surprised when i find someone's experience with the plays so much different than mine.

anyway if you're reading this feel free to reblog and tag or comment which shakespeare plays you found yourself falling into most naturally and which worlds you felt like you had to force yourself into. i'm interested in what ppl feel on this subject

#i also had a hard time w love's labor's lost for comedies. idk i just didn't connect w any of the characters tho the premise is interesting #on my inexplicable third hand: once i primed myself w the historical context to get into the wars of the roses plays i found them addictive #which is funny bc before i read them i kinda NEVER thought i'd get around to the histories #bunch of dead kings i had never heard of. i was like what care is that to me?#text post #shakespeare #king lear #julius caesar #sparknotes #that article rated cymbeline as the most difficult if you were wondering. which i think is an interesting choice #bc it's not really one of the top 10 you're most likely to be presented with #i LOVED cymbeline but it was like. the 30th play i had read. something like that lol #so clearly i was quite used to shakespeare by the time i read it. i wasn't someone who needed to psyched up to read him #(although even i can have a hard time w shakespeare still... and i have only 3 plays left once i finish this last scene in m4m)#i can't say it's a good play for a beginner to start with at all. for many reasons. but cymbeline is a great play.#a midsummer night's dream was also very easy to get into and that was the first one i read on my own #isn't it one of everyone's firsts? it's magnificent i mean. it's unmatched #and it's also one of the shortest and easiest to understand with some of the most lovely lyrical poetry #troilus and cressida was hard and i don't particularly like that one... waiting to change my mind #both t&c and love's labor's are ones i only read once and never watched in any form #so maybe i should give them another shot #i HAVE given lear a couple of other shots and i still find it kind of impenetrable to be honest #it's not that i don't understand the surface level. but i can't. idk. i can't feel much about it #by shakespeare standards

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