Heh, I have. And I’m quite fond of I Henry VI; as far as I’m concerned, Shakespeare’s take on Joan of Arc is a big plus. (Goody-goody saints are boring.)
I’ve never read Timon of Athens, except for the cartoon dachshund version, so if you’re looking for really obscure, that’s the way to go.
For a really good guide, try Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare.
It’s a wonderful in-depth study and it’s ASIMOV! You really can’t go wrong!
Come on, folks, surely I’m not the world’s only fan of Troilus and Cressida? The OP is “more interested in comedies and tragedies”; here you’ve got both in one! I can’t think of a funnier play that ends with a character wishing syphilis upon the audience. Plus it’s got that wild structure in Act V that would be sure to get some good classroom discussion going.
And, in any case, what else would one expect from a sixteenth-century Englishman? 
BTW, best quote of this thread:
I regret my lack of propriety in saying this, but these are easily two of the dumbest posts I’ve ever read on SDMB.
rmbnxs, see above. Glee was being facetious. You took him seriously.
What? no votes for Coriolanus? Shakespeare’s take on time travel…
My bad. I suppose that, if I can live by the ironic sword, I can die by it as well. Thanks.
I know this is really nitpicky of me, but I can’t resist correcting you. It’s actually The Jew of Malta. And it’s a good play, but I agree that the characterization of Barabas can be hard to take in places.
Don’t feel bad, rmbnxs. I screwed that one up, too. Oops. :X
My Shakespearean guilty pleasure is Cymbeline. It’s like what you’d get if you put all of Shakespeare’s other plays in a blender and turned it on high. Three weddings and a severed head! How can you go wrong?
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Is there no way for men to be but women Must be half-workers? We are all bastards; And that most venerable man which I Did call my father, was I know not where When I was stamp’d; some coiner with his tools Made me a counterfeit: yet my mother seem’d The Dian of that time so doth my wife The nonpareil of this. O, vengeance, vengeance! Me of my lawful pleasure she restrain’d And pray’d me oft forbearance; did it with A pudency so rosy the sweet view on’t Might well have warm’d old Saturn; that I thought her As chaste as unsunn’d snow. O, all the devils! This yellow Iachimo, in an hour,–wast not?-- Or less,–at first?–perchance he spoke not, but, Like a full-acorn’d boar, a German one, Cried ‘O!’ and mounted; found no opposition But what he look’d for should oppose and she Should from encounter guard. Could I find out The woman’s part in me! For there’s no motion That tends to vice in man, but I affirm It is the woman’s part: be it lying, note it, The woman’s; flattering, hers; deceiving, hers; Lust and rank thoughts, hers, hers; revenges, hers; Ambitions, covetings, change of prides, disdain, Nice longing, slanders, mutability, All faults that may be named, nay, that hell knows, Why, hers, in part or all; but rather, all; For even to vice They are not constant but are changing still One vice, but of a minute old, for one Not half so old as that. I’ll write against them, Detest them, curse them: yet 'tis greater skill In a true hate, to pray they have their will: The very devils cannot plague them better. [Exit]
:eek: :mad:
:smack: :smack: I meant Cymbaline, of course. From ancient Britain to Renaissance England and back again.
I thought that Hamlet was a low point for Shakespeare. He just took a load of well know quotes and strung them together. Anybody could do that!