Several of the library bloggers I read (LiB, Caveat Lector, Walt at Random) have weighed in on the “Sci-Fi [and fantasy] book meme,” marking their reading history against a list of classic science fiction and fantasy titles. I’m not going to do that one here; I have read a fair amount of science fiction–and many of my favorite authors (Murakami, Auster, Gaiman, Rushdie, David Mitchell) have a strong streak of the fantastic in their fiction–but I have only read about a dozen of those on the list.

But the sci-fi meme has reminded me to talk about my current reading project: to read the works of Shakespeare.

More bardolotry after the jump…

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At the end of 2005, I set the goal of reading all the plays and poems–in more or less the order in which he wrote them–in two years. I’ll re-read the one I have already read, as I’d like the steady diet of histories and problem plays broken up with the major tragedies and comedies.

I can’t say that I have really kept up the necessary pace this year, though: of the 38 plays, I have only read seven: Henry VI parts 1-3, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Taming of the Shrew, Titus Andronicus, and King Lear (read out of order, as two of my co-workers had never read it and wanted to). So I have a lot of work to do if I want to finish by this time next year.

As for the meme, here’s the part where I list all the ones I have read or seen. If you’d like to continue the meme, go for it.

The order of the list below comes from the Wikipedia entry Chronology of Shakespeare plays, which, like a lot of Wikipedia, is accurate enough for my purposes (it’s also different than the list in my Oxford Collected Shakespeare). There is no way to precisely date most of Shakespeare’s plays.

I have put in bold the plays I have read and italicized those I have seen on stage or screen.

It seems silly to mark plays that I hate/love (as was part of the sci fi meme), but I have added comments where I thought appropriate.

  • Henry VI, Part I
  • Henry VI, Part II
  • Henry VI, Part III
    • If you are ever forced at halberd-point to read one of the Henry VI plays, choose Part III.
  • Richard III
    • I love Olivier’s winking, scenery-chewing performance in the film. Antony Sher’s Year of the King–in which he describes his interpretation of Richard III (on crutches)–is my favorite book about acting.
  • Comedy of Errors
  • Titus Andronicus
  • Taming of the Shrew
  • Two Gentlemen of Verona
  • Love’s Labour’s Lost
    • Read it and can’t remember a damn thing. There are some guys in the forest?
  • Romeo and Juliet
  • Richard II
  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream
  • King John
  • The Merchant of Venice
  • Henry IV, Part I
  • Henry IV, Part II
  • Henry V
  • Julius Caesar
  • Much Ado About Nothing
  • As You Like It
  • The Merry Wives of Windsor
  • Hamlet
    • I saw Val Kilmer (!) in the title role at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival in 1988. The aesthetic was post-punk with music from PiL and similar acts. I liked it at the time. Michael Mullin, in Shakespeare Quarterly (JSTOR link) was less impressed: “The production celebrated eclectic gimmickry….Yet the actors seemed to take themselves seriously.”
  • Twelfth Night
  • Troilus and Cressida
  • All’s Well That Ends Well
  • Measure for Measure
    • Saw this at the RSC in Stratford in 1991. It was in previews, and I happened to sit next to director Trevor Nunn, who took notes throughout. I was too timid to say anything to him.
  • Othello
    • Saw Patrick Stewart in the title role in a reverse-race production at Washington DC’s Shakespeare Theatre Company. Stewart was fine, but the actor playing Iago and the direction were poor.
  • King Lear
  • Macbeth
    • They did a production of Macbeth when I was in college that was set in a very primitive society. My roommate said that the costumes looked like carpet remnants.
  • Antony and Cleopatra
  • Coriolanus
  • Timon of Athens
  • Pericles Prince of Tyre
  • Cymbeline
  • The Winter’s Tale
  • The Tempest
  • Henry VIII (w/John Fletcher?)
  • The Two Noble Kinsmen (w/John Fletcher).

Bonus: The Things I Will Not Do When I Direct A Shakespeare Production, On Stage Or Film, a hilarious (if incredibly long and uneven) list of Shakespearian no-nos. I believe I put this on my del.icio.us linkblog some time ago, but it deserves another link. Most of these are so specific, that it is obvious that whoever added the item to the list either sat through such a production, was a cast member in such a production, or perhaps was even the director who perpetrated the absurdity. Here is just a taste:

  1. I will not employ a conception of Caliban which would require him to wear a ghastly furry costume reminiscent of a hypothetical offspring of Chewbacca and the Wolf from Into the Woods.
  2. Also, I will not require Caliban to hump Stephano’s leg while telling him about Miranda, no matter how big a laugh it will get.

I found that list via the MetaFilter thread, which is itself worth a read as MeFi’ers add their own “dont’s” to the list, and an interesting discussion on simplicity, gimmickry, and interpretation of Shakespeare ensues.

If you decide to continue this meme, please leave me a comment with a link.