So happy to see this! I love Shakespeare! I have his complete works all in one massive book and it never has to get dusted off because I frequently read it!!
Might be an unpopular opinion but I can't stand Romeo and Juliet maybe because it's over done? Macbeth is a far better tragedy imo so idk
However some of my favorites are
Macbeth
King Lear
The Tempest
The Winter's Tale
Much Ado About Nothing
Taming of the Shrew
Sonnet 116
Sonnet 104
Sonnet 75
gosh I could go on and on
I freaking love Shakespeare
Its so funny you say that... I used to agree with that assessment of R&J until I was in it... I think I have Stockholm syndrome with it now... Also I used to love Macbeth until I sat through an "uncut" version of it and you could tell that the actors in it had no idea what the words meant...
...I noticed you listed The Tempest... Did you know its the very last play written entirely by Shakespeare? Keep that in mind the next time you read the scene where Prospero puts down his wand forever... Honestly makes me bawl like a little kid (snot bubbles and all because if anyone can make Shakespeare not classy its definitely me...)
- - - Post Merge - - -
Found the offending monologue for anyone who wants to know how to turn a 28 year old Shakespeare fan into a 28 month old mewling infant...
PROSPERO
Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,
And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid,
Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimm'd
The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault
Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory
Have I made shake and by the spurs pluck'd up
The pine and cedar: graves at my command
Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let 'em forth
By my so potent art. But this rough magic
I here abjure, and, when I have required
Some heavenly music, which even now I do,
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I'll drown my book.
