Am I saving the best for last? Yes, sir and/or m'am. Yes, I am. I have already covered Shakespeare's 15 Comedies and 10 Histories. That leaves Shakespeare's 12 Tragedies. What I rank here as the top 5 Tragedies are also ranked by me as Shakespeare's 5 best plays, overall. He was simply a master of tragedies. That's not to say that all of these are gems. Timon of Athens, which I'll begin with, I rank all the way down at 35 out of 37 overall.
Once this is all over with #1, I'll show you my rankings of all 37 of the plays together, ignoring the any distinction between category.
Another note! There are some Tragedies which you might think should be categorized as Histories, and vice versa. Some of the Histories are formally named "The Tragedy of...", and many of the Tragedies have feature historical characters. I'm just following the rules and categorizations from the First Folio, dudes.
12. Timon of Athens
You know those people who win the lottery and then everyone comes out of the woodwork to be there best friend? Then suddenly they're broke. You know how MC Hammer got super rich and then super poor? There is nothing new about this story, because Shakespeare was writing about that very thing happening, set in Ancient Greece. Timon is a rich Athenian with all sorts of hangers-on. He throws all his bros lavish parties, but his bros have zero gratitude. Once he comes to realize this, he says "fuck you guys" and straight up leaves Athens and all his wealth behind. But not really, because by coincidence (Shakespeare sure relies on coincidence a lot for a supposedly "great" writer) the cave that Timon goes to live in as a pariah (and eat roots) is instead FULL OF GOLD. Everyone somehow learns of all his sweet gold, and they beg for him to come back and defend Athens from some rebel guy. Instead Timon gives the gold to the rebel guy and a bunch of whores, with the intent that the whores spread venereal disease. Which makes no sense. It's not like whores are sex-crazed maniacs who want to spread disease. They're just trying to make some money to live a comfortable life. If Timon gives them all his gold, they don't need to have sex for money anymore. They already rich! Even if Timon is specifically paying them to spread disease, it's not like they have to follow through with it. Because Timon wanders off into the woods and dies. The end. Does this play sound terrible? Well, it is.
11. Troilus and Cressida
Remember the legend of the Trojan War? Achilles. Helen. Hector. Paris. Agamemnon. Ajax. Palmolive. Joy. Dawn. You know the one. There was a pretty terrible Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom movie about it. But most famously is the actual legendary story of Homer's (largely unreadable) Iliad. Shakespeare thought he could one-up what is regarded as one of the most famous stories of all time by doing a cover version of it, only following the incredibly minor Homeric character of Troilus, and his tragic love story with Cressida, a character who didn't even appear in Homer's Iliad, because she was only made up in 12th century France. The story actually follows two plots - one involving Troilus and Cressida's love story, and the other dealing with the rivalry and plans of the opposing Agamemnon and Priam. Guess which of the two stories the play is mostly about? If you guessed "the story that the play is named after," you'd be wrong. Naming this play Troilus and Cressida is basically the same as if they released the film Napoleon Dynamite exactly as it was with him as the protagonist, but instead named it Kip and Lafawnduh. The tone of the play is also all over the place, rotating between witty comedy and gloomy nihilism. THAT would be like if Spielberg wanted to make a fourth Indiana Jones movie after 1989's Last Crusade (which he didn't, since there are only three films), and simply chose have Indy make snappy jokes while fighting Nazis into a 1993 film called Indiana Jones and the Schindler's List. You can understand how that doesn't work at all, right? Spielberg has great films with Indiana Jones, and he has great films about the absolute horror of the Holocaust. These two things may both be about Nazis, but they should not be mixed.
10. Cymbeline
As with the play Troilus and Cressida, the play Cymbeline features Cymbeline, but not really as a main character. Cymbeline is the king of ye olde ancient Britain. Year before, his sons were kidnapped years ago by a banished lord named Belarius, although he's now living under the secret identity of "Morgan." Cymbeline also has a non-kidnapped daughter, named Imogen. But Imogen falls in love, and runs off, with a (surprisingly still-alive) man named Posthumus Leonatus. The play is mostly about Imogen though, and features her stepmom the Queen trying to marry her to her dumb step brother, and/or kill her. Cymbeline isn't happy about her marrying Deceased Leonatus either, because she's the heir to the throne and needs to marry someone worthy. And while Imogen's dad might be a "king" in name, he's really just in charge of a vassal state to the Roman Empire. When he refuses to pay his vassal rent, the Romans decide to invade. It all gets convoluted from here. So convoluted that the god Jupiter shows up for some reason. Anyway, long story short, Morgan/Belarius helps to defend Britain and reveals that his two sons are really Cymbeline's sons. Imogen is also cross-dressing (pretty normal for Shakespeare) as a Roman dude, but since Cymbeline's sons are back the king no longer gives an actual shit about his daughter anymore, so he reinstates them as his heirs and ceases to give a shit about his daughter. They have peace with Rome in the end and Imogen can marry who she loves, even if he is [not] dead. So this should be a comedy instead of a tragedy, right? You're jupiterdamned right it should be! This is totally a "Problem Play" Comedy, rather than a Tragedy. But I'm not going to be the one to un-do 400 years of history and argue with its placement as a Tragedy in the First Folio. Maybe the people making the First Folio didn't bother to read it. Why would they? I didn't.
9. Titus Andronicus
This is Shakespeare's first ever tragedy, so you'll have to excuse its lower ranking because the ol' spear shaker was still mastering his craft. It's perhaps Shakespeare's bloodiest and most violent play, and focuses on Titus (a Roman General) and his feud with Tamora (Queen of the Goths, and presumably regional manager of Hot Topic). The play was super popular in it's day, but then fell out of favor in the prudish Victorian Era that didn't like violence. The feud starts when Titus murders Tamora's son, a war captive. So all this shit is really Titus's fault. What escalates from there is a bloody series of plots of murder, treason, and revenge from both sides that includes: 1) Titus murdering his own son, 2) Tamora's sons brutally gang-raping and mutilating Titus's daughter, 3) Titus cutting off his own hand, 4) Two more of Titus's sons being murdered and their heads sent to him, 5) Tamora's Moorish lover brutally murdering Tamora's midwife to hide the fact that they had an interracial baby, 6) Tamora's lover being discovered by Titus's only remaining son, Lucius, and being blackmailed to betray her, 7) Tamora and her sons dressing up as spirits to trick Titus, only to have Titus cut the throats of Tamora's sons, 8) Titus murdering his own mutilated daughter because it was her fault that she got raped, 9) Titus grinding up the bodies of Tamora's sons and feeding them to Tamora and the Roman Emperor in a pie, 10) Titus murdering the despondent Tamora after Scott Tenorman-ing her [or Frey Pie-ing her, whichever you prefer], 11) the Roman emperor killing Titus, because he's not a fan of eating humans and watching a lady get murdered right in front of him, 12) Titus's son Lucius murdering the Roman emperor for murdering his father for murdering Tamora, for murdering... etc etc etc., 13) Lucius being crowned emperor himself, because presumably if you kill the emperor you take his powers like a quickening in The Highlander, 14) Emperor Lucius ordering the slow, brutal starvation murder of Tamora's Moorish boytoy, who regrets nothing and declares that he only wishes he could have done more evil in his life because he's Black and hence evil, and finally 15) THE ARISTOCRATS!
8. Antony and Cleopatra
This is Shakespeare's version of the tragedy of these two famous Romans, based at least someone on Plutarch's biography of Antony. It's sort of a sequel (or at least spinoff) to Julius Caesar, as Antony appears there. The story? You probably know it! If not from Shakespeare, then at least from history if you paid attention. Antony co-rules Rome as part of a Triumverate with Lepidus and Octavius. But Antony doesn't spend any time ruling Rome, because he's totally busy reaming out his girl Cleo down in Egypt. Eventually, Sextus (Yep!) Pompey launches a rebellion and Antony has to get off his butt to quash it. After he's done with that whole drama, he's quasi forced to marry Caesar's late sister, Octavia. After a while, he ditches her and goes back to Cleo. But now Octavius (not to be confused with Octavia) is angry with Antony and goes to war with Egypt. Cleo's forces retreat, forcing Antony to retreat too, so the dude thinks Cleo has betrayed him. Cleopatra realizes that Antony is furious with her, and somewhat unwisely thinks the only way to win him back to... pretend that she's dead? I'm not sure how she planned on this working. Instead of that working, it makes Antony so sad that he kills himself. Which makes Cleopatra so that that she kills herself. With a snake. Which is not that practical, but okay. Surely this bitch could find some hemlock or something, right? No, the history in the story is not perfect. Shakespeare also decided to mix up a little of Virgil's Aeneid in the plot. Still, a pretty well-known and beloved version of the Antony/Cleo tragedy.
7. Coriolanus
Getting tired of hearing about old Greek and/or Roman generals yet? Too bad! Coriolanus is a super great Roman general, who really kicked the ass of Tullus Aufidius, the leader of the rival Volsci tribe. His greatness in military battle leads to him becoming a bit of a celebrity and hero back in Rome. Alas, as good as a general as Coriolanus is, he's also a big of an ass (I mean "anus" is right there in his name). That leads to him being banished from Rome for said ass-ish-ness. After he's banished... guess who he teams up with! Since I've only actually mentioned one other character in the play, you can probably guess Aufidius! The dude becomes super popular with the Volsci and Aufidius sort of gets jealous of him. Coriolanus plans to invade Rome but is talked against it by his mommy and instead signs a peace treaty between Rome and the Volsci. Aufidius is not a fan of that shit, and so he has Coriolanus murdered. But then he feels sort of bad about it after, and gives him a nice funeral. In the play itself, Coriolanus rarely has asides or soliloquies to explain his motivations to the audience, and thus becomes less relatable when compared to other Shakespearean Tragedy protagonists.
6. Julius Caesar
I don't think I need to explain this one to you, do I? Okay, if you insist! Caesar is a popular war hero, but some feel that he's going to wind up becoming a dictator, transforming the Roman Republic into an Empire. A group of conspirators thinks that the only way to really save Rome is if Casar is killed. It's the ol' "We have to kill Baby Hitler before he turns into Hitler" story. Brutus and Cassius are two of the lead conspirators, with Brutus being the most morally torn about it. Is it right to kill Baby Hitler? He decides yes, and Caesar is dead not that far into the play. The rest of it is about the conspirators defending their actions and what happens after. Brutus gives a rational, meticulous speech explaining why he had to do what he did. That wins everyone over first, and they agree that Caesar had to go. Then Antony comes along and gives a manipulative, emotional speech that makes the gullible masses turn 180 to drive the conspirators out. Since it's a tragedy, all of those guys die by the end, with Antony even mourning the dead Brutus because he did what he did for the good of Rome. Everything you probably know about Caesar comes from this play. Do you really think the actual historical figures in this said things like, "Et tu, Brute?", "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!", "Cowards die many times before their deaths", "Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!", "Beware the Ides of March", "the fault [...] in our stars", etc? No, the did not. Thay is all Shakespeare, my peeps.
5. Romeo and Juliet
Okay. This one I'm REALLY not going to explain. You know what this is. If you're told to name a Shakespeare play, this is the one most people name. A tragic story about forbidden love because two families that hate one another have kids who love one another. It's assigned reading at every high school, I'd guess. To teach you iambic pentameter, as if you're ever going to write stuff in iambic pentameter in your life. There are a bajillion adaptions and re-imaginings of it. Capulets and Montagues are just like the Lancasters and Yorks from Shakespeare's histories (but with less historical basis), and the Hatfields and McCoys (but with less incest and banjo music). Just remember the next time you go to Verona and wade through crowds to go see "Juliet's balcony" that: a) Juliet is a fictional character made up by Shakespeare, so there is no such thing as Juliet's balcony because there is no such thing as Juliet; and b) THERE IS NO FUCKING BALCONY SCENE IN ROMEO AND JULIET. TRY TO FIND THE WORD "BALCONY" HERE. JUST FIND IT! YOU CAN'T BECAUSE IT ISN'T THERE. YOUR ENTIRE LIFE IS A LIE.
4. King Lear
King Lear is a fictional English king. You thought that when medieval people were making up stories about fake kings from the past that they started with Arthur? No way. They made up a bunch of fake kings, going all the way back to biblical times. King Lear is a supposed (but not actual) English king who had three daughters. Two of them were total ass-kissers who paid him lots of complements, while the third didn't. So he left the non-ass-kisser out of his inheritance. Of course the ass-kissers were undeserving, and participated in rebellions to overthrow their father. Exiled, Lear now teams up with the one daughter who wouldn't kiss his ass, but who truely loved and cared for him the most, as they try to take back the throne for him. How does that plan go? Well, this is a "Tragedy," so the answer is "not well." Renowned as one of Shakespeare's greatest plays. Am I going to argue with that? No.
3. Othello
Probably not the most politically correct play, but the character development of the Moor here is a lot better than in the bloodbath that is Titus Andronicus. Othello is a Moorish captain serving in the Venetian army. But his biggest enemy isn't on the other side of the battlefield, it's his own traitorous ensign, Iago. Iago forms a plot to accuse Othello's wife, Desdemona, of infidelity. Othello reacts in a totally normal and reasoned manner and-- JUST KIDDING! He kills her. Then Iago's own wife tells Othello the truth, but Iago kills her too. Othello wants sweet, sweet revenge, but he's only able to wound him. Distraut over killing his innocent wife, Othello kills himself. The play deals with racism, love, jealousy, betrayal, revenge, and repentance, and is therefore perfect to be adapted into the second-most famous Julia Styles movie adapted from Shakespeare to be set in contemporary times.
2. Macbeth
If you're at all confused by what this is (why are you reading this, if you are?), this is alternatively "the witch one", or "the Scottish one." Admittedly, just as Romeo and Juliet never says the word "balcony," this play never says the word "witch," but I think we all get the idea that these three ladies are witches, right? Anyone who says, "Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble" is a little bit more than just a Weird Sister. ANYWAY, Scottish General MacBeth gets a prophecy from a trio of witches that says he will be king, which is SUPER COOL. Inspired by the prophecy, he goes about making sure that happens by doing things like murdering the current king, Duncan. After, he's racked by guilt and paranoia, and soon has to commit more and more murders to protect himself, which does exactly the opposite by encouraging some guys named Macduff and Malcolm (the latter being the son of the murdered Duncan) wage a bloody civil war. Macbeth is pretty confident that no man can kill him though, as he also has a prophecy that he cannot be killed "by any man of woman born." The war, of course, ends with Macbeth's death, because OH HELL PROPHECIES HAVE TECHNICALITIES, in this case the fact that he was actually born by C-Section, which apparently means that your mother must be the knife that cuts you out instead of your actual mom, because that plot device makes no sense. Wouldn't the better plot twist to be killed by "no man of woman born" be to be killed by a woman? How hard would that have been, Shakes?
1. Hamlet
Well folks, Hamlet is the best play. I'm not the only one saying this. It's on nearly everyone's "best Shakespeare play" list. It's also one of the most commonly performed Shakespeare plays, although a lot of his comedies get significantly more play. Hamlet is the Prince of Denmark, and he starts getting visited by ghosts. Specifically, his dad's ghost, the late king (Hamlet Sr.) who was murdered by his own brother (hence Hamlet Jr's uncle), Claudius. Hamlet wants revenge on his evil uncle and plots to kill him, but accidentally kills his girlfriend Ophelia's dad instead. OOOPS! I guess you shouldn't randomly stab strangers behind curtains without seeing who they are. That then drives Ophelia to just drown herself in some water that never looks that deep to me. Bitch should have gotten herself to a nunnery. Hamlet still really wants to kill Uncle Claudius, and Claudius knows that. For that very reason, he encourages Ophelia's brother to try to kill Hamlet, which doesn't take much convincing at all because Hamlet is sort of responsible for the deaths of the guy's sister and father. They fight each other, but Ophelia's brother has a sword that has a poisoned tip. They both stab each other with the sword, meaning they're both goners who are about to die. Then the brother does a quick team jump as he's dying and tell all of Claudius's plot to Hamlet, which gives Hamlet enough time to run off and kill Claudius before he himself succumbs to the poisoning and dies too. So who is king if they're all dead? Just some dude named Fortinbras, presumably. And yeah, this is the "To be or not to be" one, in case you weren't aware. Where he talks to the skull of the childhood jester who entertained him. Which is just damned creepy.
Well, that's that! And as promised earlier, here are all 37 of them, ranked in order from worst to best, regardless of what type of play they are:
37. Henry VIII
36. The Two Gentlemen of Verona
35. Timon of Athens
34. Pericles, Prince of Tyre
33. Henry VI, Part 2
32. King John
31. The Merry Wives of Windsor
30. Troilus and Cressida
29. Henry VI, Part 1
28. Henry VI, Part 3
27. All's Well That Ends Well
26. Cymbeline
25. Titus Andronicus
24. Taming of the Shrew
23. Love's Labour's Lost
22. The Comedy of Errors
21. Antony and Cleopatra
20. Henry IV, Part 2
19. Coriolanus
18. Measure for Measure
17. The Winter's Tale
16. Richard II
15. The Merchant of Venice
14. Henry V
13. Julius Caesar
12. Richard III
11. Much Ado About Nothing
10. Henry IV, Part 1
9. A Midsummer Night's Dream
8. As You Like It
7. The Tempest
6. Twelfth Night
5. Romeo and Juliet
4. King Lear
3. Othello
2. Macbeth
1. Hamlet
We are done! OR ARE WE?! A surprise part 4 is still to come! Maybe Christmas has come early!
Once this is all over with #1, I'll show you my rankings of all 37 of the plays together, ignoring the any distinction between category.
Another note! There are some Tragedies which you might think should be categorized as Histories, and vice versa. Some of the Histories are formally named "The Tragedy of...", and many of the Tragedies have feature historical characters. I'm just following the rules and categorizations from the First Folio, dudes.
12. Timon of Athens
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| Timon's generous grant lives on today. What a legacy! |
11. Troilus and Cressida
Remember the legend of the Trojan War? Achilles. Helen. Hector. Paris. Agamemnon. Ajax. Palmolive. Joy. Dawn. You know the one. There was a pretty terrible Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom movie about it. But most famously is the actual legendary story of Homer's (largely unreadable) Iliad. Shakespeare thought he could one-up what is regarded as one of the most famous stories of all time by doing a cover version of it, only following the incredibly minor Homeric character of Troilus, and his tragic love story with Cressida, a character who didn't even appear in Homer's Iliad, because she was only made up in 12th century France. The story actually follows two plots - one involving Troilus and Cressida's love story, and the other dealing with the rivalry and plans of the opposing Agamemnon and Priam. Guess which of the two stories the play is mostly about? If you guessed "the story that the play is named after," you'd be wrong. Naming this play Troilus and Cressida is basically the same as if they released the film Napoleon Dynamite exactly as it was with him as the protagonist, but instead named it Kip and Lafawnduh. The tone of the play is also all over the place, rotating between witty comedy and gloomy nihilism. THAT would be like if Spielberg wanted to make a fourth Indiana Jones movie after 1989's Last Crusade (which he didn't, since there are only three films), and simply chose have Indy make snappy jokes while fighting Nazis into a 1993 film called Indiana Jones and the Schindler's List. You can understand how that doesn't work at all, right? Spielberg has great films with Indiana Jones, and he has great films about the absolute horror of the Holocaust. These two things may both be about Nazis, but they should not be mixed.
10. Cymbeline
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| Shakespeare somehow made a titty mole a major plot point. |
9. Titus Andronicus
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| This picture is basically all the explanation you need. |
8. Antony and Cleopatra
This is Shakespeare's version of the tragedy of these two famous Romans, based at least someone on Plutarch's biography of Antony. It's sort of a sequel (or at least spinoff) to Julius Caesar, as Antony appears there. The story? You probably know it! If not from Shakespeare, then at least from history if you paid attention. Antony co-rules Rome as part of a Triumverate with Lepidus and Octavius. But Antony doesn't spend any time ruling Rome, because he's totally busy reaming out his girl Cleo down in Egypt. Eventually, Sextus (Yep!) Pompey launches a rebellion and Antony has to get off his butt to quash it. After he's done with that whole drama, he's quasi forced to marry Caesar's late sister, Octavia. After a while, he ditches her and goes back to Cleo. But now Octavius (not to be confused with Octavia) is angry with Antony and goes to war with Egypt. Cleo's forces retreat, forcing Antony to retreat too, so the dude thinks Cleo has betrayed him. Cleopatra realizes that Antony is furious with her, and somewhat unwisely thinks the only way to win him back to... pretend that she's dead? I'm not sure how she planned on this working. Instead of that working, it makes Antony so sad that he kills himself. Which makes Cleopatra so that that she kills herself. With a snake. Which is not that practical, but okay. Surely this bitch could find some hemlock or something, right? No, the history in the story is not perfect. Shakespeare also decided to mix up a little of Virgil's Aeneid in the plot. Still, a pretty well-known and beloved version of the Antony/Cleo tragedy.
7. Coriolanus
Getting tired of hearing about old Greek and/or Roman generals yet? Too bad! Coriolanus is a super great Roman general, who really kicked the ass of Tullus Aufidius, the leader of the rival Volsci tribe. His greatness in military battle leads to him becoming a bit of a celebrity and hero back in Rome. Alas, as good as a general as Coriolanus is, he's also a big of an ass (I mean "anus" is right there in his name). That leads to him being banished from Rome for said ass-ish-ness. After he's banished... guess who he teams up with! Since I've only actually mentioned one other character in the play, you can probably guess Aufidius! The dude becomes super popular with the Volsci and Aufidius sort of gets jealous of him. Coriolanus plans to invade Rome but is talked against it by his mommy and instead signs a peace treaty between Rome and the Volsci. Aufidius is not a fan of that shit, and so he has Coriolanus murdered. But then he feels sort of bad about it after, and gives him a nice funeral. In the play itself, Coriolanus rarely has asides or soliloquies to explain his motivations to the audience, and thus becomes less relatable when compared to other Shakespearean Tragedy protagonists.
6. Julius Caesar
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| Great Caesar's Ghost! Literally. |
5. Romeo and Juliet
Okay. This one I'm REALLY not going to explain. You know what this is. If you're told to name a Shakespeare play, this is the one most people name. A tragic story about forbidden love because two families that hate one another have kids who love one another. It's assigned reading at every high school, I'd guess. To teach you iambic pentameter, as if you're ever going to write stuff in iambic pentameter in your life. There are a bajillion adaptions and re-imaginings of it. Capulets and Montagues are just like the Lancasters and Yorks from Shakespeare's histories (but with less historical basis), and the Hatfields and McCoys (but with less incest and banjo music). Just remember the next time you go to Verona and wade through crowds to go see "Juliet's balcony" that: a) Juliet is a fictional character made up by Shakespeare, so there is no such thing as Juliet's balcony because there is no such thing as Juliet; and b) THERE IS NO FUCKING BALCONY SCENE IN ROMEO AND JULIET. TRY TO FIND THE WORD "BALCONY" HERE. JUST FIND IT! YOU CAN'T BECAUSE IT ISN'T THERE. YOUR ENTIRE LIFE IS A LIE.
4. King Lear
King Lear is a fictional English king. You thought that when medieval people were making up stories about fake kings from the past that they started with Arthur? No way. They made up a bunch of fake kings, going all the way back to biblical times. King Lear is a supposed (but not actual) English king who had three daughters. Two of them were total ass-kissers who paid him lots of complements, while the third didn't. So he left the non-ass-kisser out of his inheritance. Of course the ass-kissers were undeserving, and participated in rebellions to overthrow their father. Exiled, Lear now teams up with the one daughter who wouldn't kiss his ass, but who truely loved and cared for him the most, as they try to take back the throne for him. How does that plan go? Well, this is a "Tragedy," so the answer is "not well." Renowned as one of Shakespeare's greatest plays. Am I going to argue with that? No.
3. Othello
.jpg) |
| Uhh... yikes. Just YIKES. |
2. Macbeth
If you're at all confused by what this is (why are you reading this, if you are?), this is alternatively "the witch one", or "the Scottish one." Admittedly, just as Romeo and Juliet never says the word "balcony," this play never says the word "witch," but I think we all get the idea that these three ladies are witches, right? Anyone who says, "Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble" is a little bit more than just a Weird Sister. ANYWAY, Scottish General MacBeth gets a prophecy from a trio of witches that says he will be king, which is SUPER COOL. Inspired by the prophecy, he goes about making sure that happens by doing things like murdering the current king, Duncan. After, he's racked by guilt and paranoia, and soon has to commit more and more murders to protect himself, which does exactly the opposite by encouraging some guys named Macduff and Malcolm (the latter being the son of the murdered Duncan) wage a bloody civil war. Macbeth is pretty confident that no man can kill him though, as he also has a prophecy that he cannot be killed "by any man of woman born." The war, of course, ends with Macbeth's death, because OH HELL PROPHECIES HAVE TECHNICALITIES, in this case the fact that he was actually born by C-Section, which apparently means that your mother must be the knife that cuts you out instead of your actual mom, because that plot device makes no sense. Wouldn't the better plot twist to be killed by "no man of woman born" be to be killed by a woman? How hard would that have been, Shakes?
1. Hamlet
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| Nice beanie, Doctor Who. |
~~~
Well, that's that! And as promised earlier, here are all 37 of them, ranked in order from worst to best, regardless of what type of play they are:
37. Henry VIII
36. The Two Gentlemen of Verona
35. Timon of Athens
34. Pericles, Prince of Tyre
33. Henry VI, Part 2
32. King John
31. The Merry Wives of Windsor
30. Troilus and Cressida
29. Henry VI, Part 1
28. Henry VI, Part 3
27. All's Well That Ends Well
26. Cymbeline
25. Titus Andronicus
24. Taming of the Shrew
23. Love's Labour's Lost
22. The Comedy of Errors
21. Antony and Cleopatra
20. Henry IV, Part 2
19. Coriolanus
18. Measure for Measure
17. The Winter's Tale
16. Richard II
15. The Merchant of Venice
14. Henry V
13. Julius Caesar
12. Richard III
11. Much Ado About Nothing
10. Henry IV, Part 1
9. A Midsummer Night's Dream
8. As You Like It
7. The Tempest
6. Twelfth Night
5. Romeo and Juliet
4. King Lear
3. Othello
2. Macbeth
1. Hamlet
We are done! OR ARE WE?! A surprise part 4 is still to come! Maybe Christmas has come early!
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