What is the worst work of William Shakespeare?

Cafe Society
21

Troilus and Cressida and Titus Andronicus both read like piss-takes. T&C is totally anti-heroic and sounds like the rantings of a very bitter man. I guess it depends on your personal bitterness how you like them. I think T&C is very funny (the Iliad played for laughs), although I’m not so big on the Jacobean blood thing of Titus.

You have to give him some points for making Love’s Labours Lost rhyme, but the plot is awful and the play is deeply dull. But his comedies tend to be his earliest plays, and it’s perhaps not surprising that his first works lack the psychological subtlety, wordplay and strong storylines that make most of his plays so great.

Othello makes no sense on several levels, from psychologically to chronologically. Coriolanus is also for me incredibly dull, with no decent poetry or speeches.

And I don’t think anyone has ever had a good word to say about King John. Although I seem to remember it’s quite short.

22

Sorry to be a pedant once again, but Titus is in fact Elizabethan, not Jacobean – it’s generally considered one of his earliest plays. Where it does fit in, though, is with the popular tradition of the gory revenge play – for instance, Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy (written in the late 1580s). Shakespeare’s own Hamlet, of course, takes this tradition and turns it on its head, but Titus was his first crack at the genre – indeed, his first attempt at tragedy. It was probably written in the early 1590s.

On preview, I note that gobear has already covered this point. Ah, well. I typed that paragraph, so why waste my labor? :wink:

And I don’t know, Coriolanus had some poetry that stuck with me – particularly Aufidius’ speech to Coriolanus when C comes to the Volscian camp:

Let me twine
Mine arms about that body, where against
My grained ash an hundred times hath broke
And scarr’d the moon with splinters: here I clip
The anvil of my sword, and do contest
As hotly and as nobly with thy love
As ever in ambitious strength I did
Contend against thy valour. Know thou first,
I loved the maid I married; never man
Sigh’d truer breath; but that I see thee here,
Thou noble thing! more dances my rapt heart
Than when I first my wedded mistress saw
Bestride my threshold. Why, thou Mars! I tell thee,
We have a power on foot; and I had purpose
Once more to hew thy target from thy brawn,
Or lose mine arm fort: thou hast beat me out
Twelve several times, and I have nightly since
Dreamt of encounters 'twixt thyself and me;
We have been down together in my sleep,
Unbuckling helms, fisting each other’s throat,
And waked half dead with nothing.

I mean, that’s good stuff. :wink: (I should note, too, that my only experience with the play was through the RSC’s recent production, which was exceedingly well-done.)

BTW, one of my sisters claims that King John is her favorite Shakespeare play. John is one of the ten or twelve I haven’t read, but I told her she’s about the only person in the whole world who’d say that. (It’s amusing, too, that she thinks I’m weird because my favorite play is Richard II…)

The thing about threads like this is that I always feel compelled to come in and play Counsel for the Defense. Haven’t even started on Dumbguy’s assessment of Henry V… :wink:

23

I saw Troilus and Cressida, didn’t like it.

As for Titus Andronicus, I had a TA in a theater class who said he thought that Shakespeare was just 500 years ahead of his time and what was needed was the invention of cinema to do it justice. Having said that, I must admit I never saw the movie Titus all the way through so I don’t know whether I agree with him.

24

i would have to say… “sleeping booty”

25

While I agree that King John is no masterpiece, I do find it readable for the character of Falconbridge.

And I see that Othello has been nominated. Now, that just ain’t right.

26

Othello happens to be my favorite play by Shakespeare. :slight_smile:

I find his comedies in general a bit boring and dull, especially Love’s Labours Lost.

Count me as another one who strongly dislikes Romeo and Juliet, probably because of overexposure. It’s certainly not his worst, but it’s definitely not his best. We see it all over the place though.

27

What about Queen Alexandra and Murray?

[Mel Brooks] “It didn’t even play in Egypt!” [/Mel Brooks]

28

Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate’s Daughter:smiley:

29

I have read all the plays (it was one of my life’s goals) and my vote is for Henry VI Part 1. My first attempt at reading all of them in order was chronologically, and I never got through this one. Finally I read them in the order of a different complete works, and this went after Henry V (which I loved,) so I made it through. Joan of Arc considered as an evil, promiscuous witch is a bit off-putting. The rest aren’t so bad. Henry VIII is second, for being boring. King John was funny in parts.

I recommend reading them all together. I was dreaming in blank verse by the time I was through.

30

West Side Story.

What ruined it for me: When Shakespeare had the hero running through the streets of east New York yelling “Maria! Maria!” …and only one woman opened her window.

31

Without a doubt King John is the worst of the Histories. I would say Henry VIII if not for the heartbreakingly good final scene for the play’s villian and only plot forwarding character Cardinal Wolsey.

I love Titus Andronicus may I say, though I’m also a huge fan of The Spanish Tragedy (The 1603 version with additions by Ben Johnson in particular.) But Timon Of Athens I have not time for whatsoever.

Personally, though I know it’s one of his most popular and enduring plays, Midsummer Night’s Dream gives me the irrits in a major way.

32

Definatly * Romeo and Juliet *. The whole “two young people fall in love despite coming from groups that hate each other” is such a tired cliche, I can’t believe the Bard used it.

33

I’m not a big fan of Midsummer Night’s Dream, but what redeems it is the peformance scene. The intentional awfulness just cracks me up, along with the MSTing by Theseus, Demetrius and Hippolyta

34

Titus Andronicus and Romeo and Juliet both work best as black comedies. (Comedies in the modern sense.) Especially at the end, when people are dying left and right.

Is it possible to spoil a Willie Shakes play in this day and age? Anyway, as a courtesy to you uncultured slobs, a spoiler box for my Titus commentary:The part at the end of TA when the queen is eating her ground-up sons in meat pies still makes me chuckle, not to mention the scene from the movie which shows the pies cooling on the windowsill like two of Mom’s Best.Of course, I also think TA would work if it were played as a spoof of the interminable Rambo flicks.

Tagline:“They killed his sons… Raped his daughter… Corrupted the Empire… It’s payback time!”
Titus, played by a Rambo-esque Stallone look-alike: “Get me my meat grinder!”

:smiley:

35

I’ve heard Timon of Athens cited as worst by folks who’ve read far more Shakespeare than me, but I can’t vouch for that. Of the ones I’ve seen, Two Gentlemen of Verona stands out as the least impressive.

Personally, though, I liked Titus Andronicus, although I think the folks at Wendy’s Japan were sleeping through lit class when it was taught. How else can you explain a hamburger restaurant agreeing to put up ads all over their shops for a movie like that?

36

Yeah, I can’t believe nobody sued him for ripping of West Side Story like that.

I have to second the earlier question- What the hell is Othello doing on this list?

37

Is TITUS ANDRONICUS ever performed? I’ve never seen it.
Another point: there still seems to be arguement about the extent of Wm Skakespeare’s playwriting…was he more of an editor than an author? People tell me that many of his plays bear close resemblances to other Elizabethan works …Marlowes’ JEW OF MALTA is supposedly very close in plot to THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. So, did Will Shakespeare plagiarize a lot?

38

Pericles, for whichever part of it is his fault.

39

A better question than what Othello is doing on this thread is what Julius Caesar is doing NOT on this thread?

40

Somebody already mentioned it.

The fact that the plots are vaguely similar, which I’m told they are, does not make him an editor. Almost all of his plays were adapted from some source or other (The Tempest is almost totally original). Generally it was classical stuff (Comedy of Errors owes a lot to the Roman author Plautus; Romeo and Juliet comes from a poem called Romeus and Juliet, etc.)
Is that the same as plagiarism? No. The authors of West Side Story didn’t plagiarize Shakespeare, they adapted his work. What Shakespeare did - especially when it came to re-telling classics, which is what you were supposed to do to prove you could write - was standard practice.

Another reason he’s not an editor or a plagiarist is that the stuff he wrote is better and more interesting than the originals.

Here’s some info from CampusNut.com comparing The Jew of Malta with Merchant:

I don’t think you can overstate how important this difference is. There are also several other plots in Merchant, and I’m not sure how many (if any) appear in Marlowe’s play. Barabas is gleefully evil, Shylock is a grievously wronged man who goes too far in revenge.