# The best Shakespearean tragedy?



## weinhold

Which of these four tragedies is Shakespeare's greatest: _Hamlet_, _Macbeth_, _King Lear_, _Othello_. Why?

What other Shakespearean plays do you enjoy?


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## CalvinandHodges

Hi:

There is the old saying that in Shakespeare a tradegy is where everyone dies, and a comedy is where everyone lives! 

Hamlet is considered his best tradegy because of the psychological tension, court intrigue, use of language, and the question as to the guilt or innocense of Hamlet's uncle is never fully resolved. How much more tradgic would the play be if the uncle was truly innocent!

Iago's scheming in Othello makes the play worthwile, but the foolishness and stupidity of Othello is what drives the tradegy. I was not impressed.

Macbeth was a brute who loved his wife beyond common sense. It was Shakespeare's bloodiest play, and I think that is about all that recommended it. The way he worked out the "prophecy" concerning "Birnum Wood do come to Dunsumay" (SP?) was rather lame.

Grace,

-CH


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## jbergsing

Of the only two works from Shakespeare I've read, Macbeth and Othello, I voted for Macbeth. I guess I should read Hamlet one of these days.


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## Davidius

The inner struggles of Macbeth are portrayed well. I voted for that one.


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## elnwood

I've not read Macbeth, but of the other three, I chose King Lear.


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## py3ak

Well, I actually think that for visceral horror as an element in the tragedy, nothing surpasses _Titus Andronicus_.


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## LadyFlynt

King Lear. Nothing more tragic than the emotional removal of a child and the consequences as well as facing oneself.


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## SRoper

CalvinandHodges said:


> Macbeth was a brute who loved his wife beyond common sense. It was Shakespeare's bloodiest play, and I think that is about all that recommended it.



Is not Titus Andronicus Shakespeare's bloodiest play?


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## AV1611

Shakespeare's best tragedy is the time I wasted studying him for English literature


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## weinhold

A few brief comments:

1. Richard, I hope that by this:


AV1611 said:


> Shakespeare's best tragedy is the time I wasted studying him for English literature


 you meant that the tragedy was your wasting time, and not your studying Shakespeare.

2. I saw Titus Andronicus mentioned a few times. Yes, it is certainly Shakespeare's bloodiest play, but also one of his earliest. Most critics agree that it lacks the gravitas of his later works.

3. I haven't voted yet. I'm torn between Hamlet and Lear. I guess it depends on which one i've read or viewed lately.

By the way, how do we define tragedy? Perhaps this poll might lead us into such a question, which I'll post on a different thread a bit later.


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## AV1611

weinhold said:


> 1. Richard, I hope that by this: you meant that the tragedy was your wasting time, and not your studying Shakespeare.



I meant that studying Shakespeare is a waste of time and torture. I am not a fan of the baird


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## py3ak

weinhold said:


> A few brief comments:
> 
> 2. I saw Titus Andronicus mentioned a few times. Yes, it is certainly Shakespeare's bloodiest play, but also one of his earliest. Most critics agree that it lacks the gravitas of his later works.
> 
> 3. I haven't voted yet. I'm torn between Hamlet and Lear. I guess it depends on which one i've read or viewed lately.



I'm not sure that we can rank Shakespeare's tragedies, since each one offers something different. It is the most viscerally horrifying of Shakespeare's plays; but that doesn't make it his best (though it doesn't make it not his best, either). And of course many of the historical plays have tragic elements in them. I think as far as intensity of appeal through visual imagery go, Titus Andronicus and The Rape of Lucrece predominate.


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## weinhold

AV1611 said:


> I meant that studying Shakespeare is a waste of time and torture. I am not a fan of the baird



It's too bad you are not a fan of the bard. I hope you at least appreciate his contribution to the English language, and to drama and poetry as well. He's the greatest English poet and playwright. Perhaps someday you will have the joy of experiencing him anew. If the classroom didn't do it for you, try just picking up one of the many great Shakespeare films available at your local video store. _Much Ado About Nothing_ directed by Kenneth Branaugh, for example.

PW


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## weinhold

py3ak said:


> I'm not sure that we can rank Shakespeare's tragedies, since each one offers something different. It is the most viscerally horrifying of Shakespeare's plays; but that doesn't make it his best (though it doesn't make it not his best, either). And of course many of the historical plays have tragic elements in them. I think as far as intensity of appeal through visual imagery go, Titus Andronicus and The Rape of Lucrece predominate.



Sure, it's a conventional and hypothetical exercise. At least we're talking a little Shakespeare though, right? You mentioned "viscerally horrifying" and "appeal through visual imagery," but are these really elements of the tragic? Wouldn't we have to say film (or even opera) outdoes Shakespeare in this regard? But such spectacles seem, to me at least, fairly kitsch when compared to Shakespeare. Likewise, Titus and Lucrece don't really compare with the four great tragedies.

PW


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## py3ak

weinhold said:


> Sure, it's a conventional and hypothetical exercise. At least we're talking a little Shakespeare though, right? You mentioned "viscerally horrifying" and "appeal through visual imagery," but are these really elements of the tragic? Wouldn't we have to say film (or even opera) outdoes Shakespeare in this regard? But such spectacles seem, to me at least, fairly kitsch when compared to Shakespeare. Likewise, Titus and Lucrece don't really compare with the four great tragedies.
> 
> PW



They are not necessary elements of the tragic. I don't think most opera libretti have a whole lot of visual imagery --and I don't think that film really qualifies here, because I was speaking of visual imagery through words: Shakespeare makes you _see_ in those two works. The point of my posting is that you have to specify wherein the comparison lies, in order to say that this or that is superior. And since Shakespeare doesn't seem to me to repeat himself in any of his compositions (taking the sonnets as a sequence, naturally), the point of comparison needs to be made more precise. This is why I can't vote on the poll yet: it's not clear to me what "better" is supposed to mean.


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## weinhold

py3ak said:


> They are not necessary elements of the tragic. I don't think most opera libretti have a whole lot of visual imagery --and I don't think that film really qualifies here, because I was speaking of visual imagery through words: Shakespeare makes you _see_ in those two works. The point of my posting is that you have to specify wherein the comparison lies, in order to say that this or that is superior. And since Shakespeare doesn't seem to me to repeat himself in any of his compositions (taking the sonnets as a sequence, naturally), the point of comparison needs to be made more precise. This is why I can't vote on the poll yet: it's not clear to me what "better" is supposed to mean.



Ruben, now I see what you mean. Thanks for clarifying. Your desire for a qualitative definition is apt, but I'm afraid I'll need some help providing you with an answer as there are a number of possible options. Perhaps that's why I left the question as vague as I did. Upon thinking about the potentialities, I suppose that I would have us focus upon the tragic. Which play is most tragic? This question clearly forces us to define tragedy, which is an exercise that would be rewarding for us. Aristotle helps us define tragedy in _The Poetics_, Nietzsche in _The Birth of Tragedy_, and one of my professors, Louise Cowan, in _The Tragic Abyss_. Aristotle's formula tends to provide a starting point for thinking about tragedy. He asserts that Sophocles' _Oedipus Rex_ is the ideal tragedy, because of 1) its inevitably progressing and cohesive plot, with a beginning, middle, and end; 2) the anagnoresis that allows Oedipus to realize his own hamartia; and 3) the cathartic effect of the drama. Perhaps there are other important observations that Aristotle makes which I am missing. Anyway, I hope that gets us started towards defining the tragic. I'll post more from Louise Cowan in a separate thread.

So which of these four tragedies by Shakespeare is the most tragic?


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## weinhold

By the way, Ruben, I LOVE that you see the sonnets as a sequence.


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## py3ak

OK, within those three criteria (although catharsis is hard to quantify), I'm torn between Hamlet and Lear. The plot of Hamlet strikes me as being more inevitable; but although Hamlet is remarkably self aware in some things (resolution's native hue being sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought) it does not seem to me so clear that he realizes his fault as Lear does.


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## fredtgreco

py3ak said:


> OK, within those three criteria (although catharsis is hard to quantify), I'm torn between Hamlet and Lear. The plot of Hamlet strikes me as being more inevitable; but although Hamlet is remarkably self aware in some things (resolution's native hue being sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought) it does not seem to me so clear that he realizes his fault as Lear does.



Ruben,

I'll help. The answer is Lear.  The order is:

Lear
Hamlet
Macbeth
Julius Caesar
Othello
Romeo and Juliet
Lear is a masterpiece. Only it could surpass Hamlet. One of the great tragedies of our time is that schools are producing students who do not know Shakespeare, or his genius. Part of it is the stultifying influence of TV, video games, etc., and part of it is incompetence of teachers.

As for understanding tragedy in general, the best place to start is with is Aristotle's _Poetics_.


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## SRoper

AV1611 said:


> I meant that studying Shakespeare is a waste of time and torture. I am not a fan of the baird



You're in good company. JRR Tolkien did not like Shakespeare either.


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## py3ak

I am familiar with Aristotle's poetics (women are, perhaps, rather bad than good), and I can sympathize with your location of _Lear_. I wouldn't follow your whole list, though. What do you like so much about Macbeth?

Yes, I ran into a girl who wanted to be a high-school English teacher. She had read, she thought, 3 of Shakespeare's plays --_Midsummer Night's Dream_, _Romeo and Juliet_ and I forget what the other one that she said was. She'd never heard of Swift's _Modest Proposal_.


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## fredtgreco

py3ak said:


> I am familiar with Aristotle's poetics (women are, perhaps, rather bad than good), and I can sympathize with your location of _Lear_. I wouldn't follow your whole list, though. What do you like so much about Macbeth?
> 
> Yes, I ran into a girl who wanted to be a high-school English teacher. She had read, she thought, 3 of Shakespeare's plays --_Midsummer Night's Dream_, _Romeo and Juliet_ and I forget what the other one that she said was. She'd never heard of Swift's _Modest Proposal_.



Macbeth is a classic example of _hubris_. In a way, Macbeth is the prototypical modern man - competent and loyal at first, he is driven to extremes by a nagging wife, sure that he deserves more than he has, and just as sure that everyone else needs to give way to him so he can get it.

Shakespeare is the opposite of Dashall Hamet detective stories: those stories have great plot and wooden, unbelievable characters. Shakespeare does not always have the best (or even original) plots, but his characters and drama are second to none.

We are a lost generation. Think of how many Shakespearean lines you used to be able to just start in order to make a point:

"I could bound myself in a nutshell..."
"There is a divinity that shapes our ends..."
"[FONT=&quot]Let me have men about me that are fat"
"[/FONT]But, woe the while! our fathers’ minds are dead, [FONT=&quot]And we are govern’d with our mothers’ spirits"
"Out, Out, damned spot!"

I could go on and on and on...
[/FONT]


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## LadyFlynt

Pastor Greco...we agree upon something. Lear at the top and Romeo & Juliet at the bottom.

Romeo and Juliet are a tragedy of the weakest sort and only because of foolish naivetivity.


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## LadyFlynt

fredtgreco said:


> We are a lost generation.
> [/FONT]


Sad and true.

I discovered Shakepeare in 6th grade. The public library had a collection of his works in small, blue clothbounds. I was sorely disappointed in highschool to have to sit through a chopped up snippet of Julius Ceasar and another go round of Romeo and Juliet. There were so much more interesting plays of his and in their entirety is the only way to read them.

I must admit that the battle of the sexes were what had me enjoying them the most...and the ironies...


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## LadyFlynt

fredtgreco said:


> As for understanding tragedy in general, the best place to start is with is Aristotle's _Poetics_.



Thank you for mentioning this; the name sounded familiar. I went through my schoolbooks and found that I had acquired this at a yard sale somewhere, "Aristotle on Poetry and Style"...inside it says, "The Poetics". Guess, I'll have to start reading.


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## jsup

I agree Lady Flint about Romeo and Juliet. It's overrated. It was hard for me to choose between Macbeth and Hamlet. They are equally great to me, but I voted for Hamlet. Now I wish I had voted for Macbeth. LOL


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## weinhold

I really don't understand why _Macbeth _is competing for first place in our poll. Will somebody help me understand what makes it better than _Lear_?


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## JonathanHunt

Away from the tragedies (I voted for the Scottish play), my favourite is Twelfth Night.

Why Macbeth? It is dark from the very first moment. The imagery is so rich... yada yada. And, for me, it has more 'stand-out' moments, characters and lines.

JH


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## MrMerlin777

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps at this petty pace from day to day to the last sylable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools their way to dusty death. Out! Out brief candle. Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. Tis a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Macbeth's soliliquy (more or less, don't think I've got all of the punctuation correct)

I had to memorize this in my senior year of highschool. That was 21 years ago and I still can't forget it.


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## weinhold

MrMerlin777 said:


> Tis a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.



Faulkner certainly took this quote and ran with it.


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## Davidius

I'm glad to see that Macbeth is making a comeback.


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## bwsmith

AV1611 said:


> I meant that studying Shakespeare is a waste of time and torture. I am not a fan of the baird



Have you read or watched In Search of Shakespeare? It might spark an interest in light of the religious turmoil in 16th-17th England.


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## panta dokimazete

I voted Othello because I am biased...Verdi made it a wonderful Opera!


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## Gloria

Othello!


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