I loved Othello . Next to Hamlet it catches the attention and the heart of the reader . This play wraps one up in the world Shakespere recreated of Love Hate Lust Desire and Greed . I say Read it , think about it Tell a friend . I was especailly touched by the actions of Iago. Even though he was Evil incarnate one can find a little of him everywhere . Still this cant compare to the effect the drama gives one if they view it being preformed firsthand.

I have read Othello, Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and Julius Caesar, and I consider Othello to be Shakespeare's greatest tragedy that I have read to this point. The villain, Iago, is unlike any other villain. His character seems to be pure evil and is, in my mind, the most intense villain created by a writer known for his intense villains. I believe this play has a more enduring value than other Shakespeare works and can still be enjoyed by all today. It puts a clear boundary between good and evil unlike any other Shakespeare tragedy. The play centers on Iago's attempt to ruin Othello after he is passed up for a higher position in Othello's forces for a young, inexperienced soldier, Michael Cassio. He hatched an elaborate plan of evil and Othello falls perfectly into his trap. It is painful to read the play, with the knowledge of Iago's plan, if you develop sympathy for the unsuspecting Othello as he gets closer and closer to the final trap. I find it unbelievably ironic that so small an article as a handkerchief could start off such a chain of death and sadness at the end of the play, but I won't spoil the rest for those who have not read it. If you have not read Othello, please do. It is a brilliant, passionate, tragic, timeless work by perhaps the greatest writer ever.

This is the first book specifically focused on Oriental culture and symbolism that I have picked up in my entire life (for me, an aspiring writer, not to know something so enticing? - preposterous!). Quite instantly presented me with an insatiable interest of the subject. Precise, academical, and completely accessible for literally anyone (it was accessible for me!), Outlines is the perfect reference work for an aspiring beginner. It is illustrated in black-and-white where illustrations might be expected, all specific terms are followed by the Chinese hieroglyphs, and, overall, this seems to be a very solid and well-written work. The only reason I am giving this book a mere four stars is that of caution: how can I, a total beginner, know if this book isn't lying?

As with the previous reviewer, this was also one of the first in my collection. An excellent dictionary-style reference work which examines the historical, legendary and every day significance of about two hundred objects and concepts which play key roles in Chinese culture. Footnoted with sources, it is an excellent spring board and encourages the reader to do more in depth study on the wide variety of topics touched on in this volume.

One of his lesser known works, Shakespeare's Trojan play is also one of his most intriguing. Not quite a burlesque, 'Troilus and Cressida''s lurches in tone, from farce to historical drama to romance to tragedy, and its blurring of these modes, explains why generations of critics and audiences have found it so unsatisfying, and why today it can seem so modern. Its disenchanted tone, its interest in the baser human instincts underlying (classical) heroism look forward to such 20th century works as Giraudoux's 'The Trojan War Will Not Take Place' or Terry Jones' 'Chaucer's Knight'; the aristocratic ideals of Love and War, inextricably linked in this play, are debased by the merchant-class language of exchange, trade, food, possesion - the passionate affair at its centre is organised by the man who gave his name to pimps, Pandarus, and is more concerned with immediate sexual gratification than anything transcendental. The Siege of Troy sequences are full of the elaborately formal rhetoric we expect from Shakespeare's history plays, but well-wrought diplomacy masks ignoble trickery; the great heroes Ajax and Achilles are petulant egotists, the latter preferring the company of his catamite to combat; the actual war sequences, when they finally come, are a breathless farce of exits and entrances. There are a lot of words in this play, but very few deeds.

Paris, Prince of Troy, has abducted Helen, wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta. Led by the latter's brother Agamemnon, and his Machiavellian advisors Ulysses and Nestor, the Greeks besiege Troy, demanding the return of Helen. However, Achilles' dissatisfaction at the generals' endless politicking has spread discontent in the ranks. Within Troy, war takes a distinct second place to matters of the heart. While Paris wallows in luxury with his prize, his youngest brother Troilus uses Pandarus as a go-between to arrange a night of love with his niece, Cressida. When one of the Trojan leaders is taken prisoner by the Greeks, the ransom price is Cressida.

There is only one character in 'Troilus' who can be said to be at all noble and not self-interested, the eldest Trojan prince Hector, who, despite his odd interpreation of the quality 'honour', detests a meaningless war, and tries to spare as many of his enemies' lives as he can. He is clearly an anachronism, however, and his ignoble slaughter at the hands of a brutal gang suggests what price chivalry. Perhaps the most recognisable character is Thirsitis, the most savagely cynical of his great Fools. Imagine Falstaff without the redeeming lovability - he divests heroes and events of their false values, satirises motivations, abuses his dim-witted 'betters' and tries to preserve his life at any cost. Written in between 'Hamlet' and 'All's Well That Ends Well', 'Troilus' bears all the marks of Shakespeare's mid-period: the contrapuntal structure, the dense figures, the audacious neologisms, and the intitially deferred, accelerated action. If some of the diplomacy scenes are too efective in their parodic pastiche of classical rhetoric, and slow things down, Act 5 is an amazing dramatic rush, crowning the play's disenchantment with love (with an extraordinarily creepy three-way spaying of an infidelity) and war.

The New Penguin Shakespeare is the most accessible and user-friendly edition for students and the general reader (although it does need updating). Unlike the Oxford or Arden series, which offer unwieldy introductions (yawning with irrelevant conjecture about dates and sources) and unusable notes (clotted with tedious pedantry more concerned with fighting previous commentators than elucidating Shakespeare), the Penguin's format offers a clear Introduction dealing with the play and its contexts, an appendix 'An Account of the Text', and functional endnotes that gloss unfamiliar words and difficult passages. The Introduction is untainted by fashions in Critical Theory, but is particularly good at explaining the role of Time ('When time is old and hath forgot itself...And blind oblivion swallowed cities up'), the shifting structure, the multiple viewpoints in presenting characters, and Shakespeare's use of different literary and linguistic registers.

Troilus and Cressida is one of Shakespear`s many romances, and, like most of his romances, is a tragedy. Since time immemorial, Shakespears` works have been used as plays, literature and (least often) just casual reading. While Troilus and Cressida is one of the less known plays, it is no less a good one. It is based in Troy(as the name might imply)during the much renowned Trojan War. The valiant Troilus, son of the Trojan king is enamoured of Cressida, also of Troy. Meanwhile, the Greek hosts have laid siege to the city, and the warrior Achilles refuses to fight, encouraging further interaction between the two sides. Cressida, however, is the daughter of a Greek sympathizer(if that is the correct word)and may not be able to honour her commitment to the Trojan prince...

I think this is one os Shakespeare's most underrated plays, probably because of all the uncouth characters. Based on Chaucer's rendition of the story, T and C are Trojan lovers, and she is then traded to the Greeks in exchange for captive soldiers. Aside from this, the women of Troy are wanton and lustful, and the men are prowess driven. If you can deal with this, you will really enjoy Shakespeare's ability to wrap this into all kinds of twists and turns. It delivers a mixture of satire, comedy, romance, tragedy, and a semi-historical (in that people at the time probably believed the Trojan War really happened). Interestingly, this mixture of laughs and tragedy is reminiscent of war novels I have read about Vietnam. The romantic dimensions give this play its edge, and somehow WS manages to make it plausible in spite of all the killing and deceit going on at the same time.

I've read 4 books on the subject and all this one is a play by play of what happened and a plug for The Malitia and Grand Puba William Cooper of the Intelligence Dept of the 2nd Constitutional Malitia. Read the book by McVeighs lawyer, Others Unknown. That is an extremely well written and insightful book. This one was a waste of my money.

Most documented of all the books I have seen on this subject.

Presents compelling prima facia evidence proving detonations inside the building as well as BATF prior knowledge and also covers how evidence was 'lost', covered up and ignored.

The glossary in this work (about half the book)is very informative.

Read it for yourself.

Michele Marie Moore was on top of the story from the time the explosion ocurred and accurately reports on what happened that fateful day. After reading this book, you will be wise to doubt what the "Big Media" dictates to you every day and the lies that the FBI and ATF espouse as the "Official story". I wish that Michele Marie Moore would write a sequel to this book, which I think she intended to do.

Cymbeline was a British king in Roman times ( Augustus Caesar's time).
Devices used in the Play:
1) a woman plays a man/ boy role ( several of his plays : As You Like it,
Twelfth Night))
2) a deception by a villain to lie the virtue of a Lady ( Much Ado about
Nothing)
3) Princes kidnapped and brought up as common men ( I don't know if he
uses this in other plays)
4) poison that causes a coma ( Romeo and Juliet)
5) a Prince who is a vile fool ( used in his historical plays)
6) a Queen who is a plotter and evil ( Macbeth)
7) a Prince who kills another Prince and it redeemed by his hidden
identity
8) a Prince sentenced to hang by mistake
9) a King who condemns his daughter wrongly ( King Lear)
One wonders how much of this is historical fact and how much pure fiction.
With all this scheming in the plot , it should be a very successful
play.
It is a total flop!
What it comes out is seeming unreal and contrived.
You get that happy ending feel that is so much in his comedies
but it has a very false feeling to it.
That's probably why Cymbeline isn't performed much.
If he hadn't gone for all these at once it might have worked, but the
result is that you see the playwright as ....
If anyone wants to take the air out of a Shakespeare pedant,
this is the play to do it with! He makes Shaw and Eugene O'neil l
look good. He even make Rogers and Hammerstein and Gilbert and
Sullivan look better, ha, ha...
This play is not Shakespeare's finest hour!

"Cymbeline" is my favourite Shakespeare play. It's also probably his loopiest. It has three plots, managing to drag in a banishment, a murder, a wicked queen, a moment of almost sheer pornography, a full-on battle between the Romans and the British, a spunky heroine, her jealous but not-really-all-that-bad husband, some fantastic poetry and Jupiter himself descending out of heaven on an eagle to tell the husband to pull his finger out and get looking for his wife. Finally, just when your head is spinning with all the cross-purposes and dangling resolutions, Shakespeare pulls it all together with shameless neatness and everybody lives happily ever after. Except for the wicked queen, and her son, who had his head cut off in Act 4.

"Cymbeline" is, then, completely nuts, but it manages also to be very moving. Quentin Tarantino once described his method as "placing genre characters in real-life situations" - Shakespeare pulls off the far more rewarding trick of placing realistic characters in genre situations. Kicking off with one of the most brazen bits of expository dialogue he ever created, not even bothering to give the two lords who have to explain the back story an ounce of personality, Shakespeare quickly recovers full control and races through his long, complex and deeply implausible narrative at a headlong pace. The play is outrageously theatrical, and yet intensely observed. Imogen's reaction on reading her husband's false accusation of her infidelity is a riveting mixture of hurt and anger; she goes through as much tragedy as a Juliet, yet is less inclined to buckle and snap under the pressure. When she wakes up next to a headless body that she believes to be her husband, her aria of grief is one of the finest WS ever wrote. No less impressive is her plucky determination to get on with her life, rather than follow her hubby into the grave.

Posthumus, the hubby in question, is made of less attractive stuff, but when he comes to believe that Imogen is dead, as he ordered (this play is full of people getting things wrong and suffering for it), he rejects his earlier jealousy and starts to redeem himself a tad. There's a vicious misogyny near the heart of this play, as Shakespeare biographer Park Honan observed, kept in balance by a hatred of violence against women. The oafish prince Cloten, who lusts after Imogen, is a truly repellent piece of work, without even the intelligence of Iago or the horrified panic of Macbeth; his plan to kill Posthumus and rape Imogen before her husband's body is just about as squalid and vindictive as we expect of this louse, and when a long-lost son of the king (don't even _ask_) lops Cloten's head off, there are cheers all round.

Shakespeare sends himself up all through "Cymbeline". I wonder if the almost ludicrously informative opening exposition scene isn't a bit of a gag on his part, but when a tired and angry Posthumus breaks into rhyming couplets, then catches himself and observes "You have put me into rhyme", we know that Shakespeare is having us on a little. Likewise, the final scene, when all is resolved, goes totally over the top in its piling-on "But-what-of-such-and-such?" and "My-Lord-I-forgot-to-mention" moments.

Yet the moments of terror and pity are deep enough to make the jokiness feel truly earned. When Imogen is laid to rest and her adoptive brothers recite "Fear no more the heat o' the sun" over her body, it's as affecting as any moment in the canon. That she isn't actually dead, we don't find out until a few moments later, but it's still a great moment.

Playful, confusing, enigmatic, funny and shot through with a frightening darkness, this is another top job by the Stratford boy. Well done.

A combination of "Romeo and Juliet," "Much Ado About Nothing," "As You Like It," and "King Lear?" Well somehow, Shakespeare made it work. Like "Romeo and Juliet" we have a protagonist (Imogen) who falls under her father's rages because she will not marry who he wants her to. Like "Much Ado About Nothing," we have a villain (Iachimo) who tries to convince a man (Posthumus) that the woman he loves is full of infidelity. Like "As You Like It," we have exiled people who praise life in the wilderness and a woman who disguises herself as a man to search for her family in the wilderness. Like "King Lear," we have a king who's rages and miscaculated judgement lead to disastorous consequences. What else is there? Only beautiful language, multiple plots, an evil queen who tries to undermind the king, an action filled war, suspense, a dream with visions of Pagan gods, and a beautiful scene of reconciliation at the end. While this is certainly one of Shakespeare's longer plays, it is well worth the time.

Shakespeare portrays King Richard III as a hunchbacked thoroughly evil man. While based upon the historical Richard III, the play is a dramatization. Although classed as a history, remember that Shakespeare's histories aren't historically accurate biographies. Richard is a power-hungry brother of a king who murders, schemes, marries, and plots to usurp the throne from rightful heirs. Richard gets his due when he meets Henry Tudor on the field of battle and the reign of the Yorkist kings comes to an end. Written under the rule of a Tudor monarch (Elizabeth I), the play paints the brutal Richard in an especially unfavorable light. After all, the rise of the Tudors depended upon the death of Richard III. The treatment of women in the play has been criticized, especially the speed under which Anne accepts Richard III -- with her dead father in law in the scene, no less. The play compresses 14 years or so of real history into 5 acts. It is hard to go wrong with Shakespeare. A good but dark read.

Let's get one thing clear from the start: when I rate Shakespeare, I rate it against other Shakespeare; otherwise, the consistently high ratings would not be very informative. If I was rating this against the general run of literature available, it would unquestionably rate 5 stars.

So what brings it down to 4, as compared to other Shakespeare? Primarily a few places where it demands a bit too much suspension of disbelief; the language is some of Shakespeare's best, and is comparatively easy for a modern reader (I found most of the footnotes to be sufficiently unnecessary to be actually more distraction than help). But for one thing, if Richard is withered, hunchbacked, and deformed, how is it that he has been able to kill so many of his victims in battle? For another thing, is it REALLY plausible that Princess Anne would be persuaded as she was by someone with nothing more going for him than Richard? To paraphrase the scene,

Anne: You killed my husband and his father! I hate you I hate you I hate you!

Richard: But I only did it 'cause I'm hot for you, babe! Wanna marry me?

Anne: Welll...maybe. Let me think about it.

(And, in fact, she marries him. Just like that.)

Also, there are virtually NO characters in this play that are sympathetic, save perhaps for the two murdered children and Richmond, and we really don't see enough of them to feel much connection; it dilutes the effectiveness of the portrayal of Richard's evil when almost all of the other characters are, if not just as bad, certainly bad enough.

Richard III is the most well crafted satanic character in all of Shakespeare's writing. What can get frightening is that you see his evil, and yet you like him. The play is dramatically frightening from one scene to the next. To this day, I never could forget the scene where Hastings is sentenced to death or when Richard is haunted by the 11 ghosts. But the virtuous Henry VII also offers captivating passages (especially his passage that announces the end of the War of the Roses.) It is also interesting to see how carefully Shakespeare had to handle Henry VII, seing his granddaughter Elizabeth was in the audience. To be sure, Richard III is blamed for several things he did not do. The dramatic irony is that whatever he was innocent of, all the circumstancial evidence says he murdered his nephews.(Rumors that he killed them continued to spread like fire. Not only did he start losing England's loyalty, but many of his own followers in a rage abandoned him and joined Henry VII. France began to humiliate Richard by broadcasting official accusations and Richard never so much as denied having done it. If he could have produced the princes, his troubles would have been over.)This one vile deed made it possible for Shakespeare to make Richard this monster from hell and convincingly pile a slew of vile deeds upon him of which he was innocent. But all that aside, women such as Richard's furious mother and the raging former Queen Margaret add to the drama and chills. The gradual unfolding of Margaret's curses adds a charming orginizational bonus to this masterpiece. If you want to enjoy this play all the more, make sure you read "3 Henry VI" first. Richard's demonic nature is heavily prepared in this preceeding play.

When rating Shakespeare, I am rating it against other Shakespeare; otherwise, the consistent 4-5 stars wouldn't tell you much. So if you want to know how this book rates against the general selection of books in the world, I suppose it might rate four stars; it certainly rates three. The language, as usual in Shakespeare, is beautiful. Still, it's far from Shakespeare's best.

For one thing, this is one of those cases, not uncommon in Shakespeare's comedies, in which the play has suffered a great deal by the changes in the language since Shakespeare's time; it loses a great deal of the humor inherent in a play when the reader needs to keep checking the footnotes to see what's happening, and this play, particularly the first half of it, virtually can't be read without constant reference to the notes; even with them, there's frequently a question as to what's being said. At least in the edition that I read (the Dover Thrift edition) the notes frequently admit that there's some question as to the meaning of the lines, and there is mention of different changes in them in different folios.

But beyond this, as an overweight, balding, middle-aged libertine, I object to the concept that Falstaff is ridiculous just because he is in fact unwilling to concede that it is impossible that a woman could want him. Granted, he's NOT particularly attractive, but that has more to do with his greed, his callousness, and his perfect willingness to use people for his own ends, to say nothing of his utter lack of subtlety.

Is it truly so funny that an older, overweight man might attempt to find a dalliance? So funny that the very fact that he does so leaves him open to being played for the fool? Remember, it isn't as though he refused to take "no" for an answer; he never GOT a "no". He was consistently led on, only to be tormented for his audacity. Nor is he making passes at a nubile young girl; the target of his amorous approaches is clearly herself middle-aged; after all, she is the MOTHER of a nubile young marriageable girl. And given the fact that she is married to an obnoxious, possessive, bullying and suspicious husband, it is not at all unreasonable for Falstaff to think that she might be unhappy enough in her marriage to accept a dalliance with someone else.

If laughing at fat old men who have the audacity not to spend the last twenty years of their lives with sufficient dignity to make it seem as if they were dead already is your idea of a good time, you should love this play. I'll pass.

i've just finished reading/watching all of shakespeare's comedies and mww is one of the funnier ones. it is a lighthearted look at marital jealousy and features one of shakespeare's great fools, falstaff (of henry iv fame). the out-and-out funniest shakepearean play is still "taming of the shrew", imho, but mwv runs well ahead of the laggards, and certainly well ahead of such better known plays as "twelfth night" and "as you like it".

Shakespeare, considering he wrote this little gem of a comedy in a mere 14 days for the Virgin Queen, pulls off a play that proves both witty and fun. Unequivocally, The Merry Wives of Windsor makes for a more enjoyable play if seen live. Nonetheless, reading it is the 2nd best thing.

Sir John Falstaff is once again such a fool - but a lovable and hilarious one at that. Having read Henry V - where Falstaff ostensibly had met his end - I was pleased to see him so alive(pardon the pun) in this short, albeit clever play. It is no surprise that The Merry Wives of Windsor enjoyed such a long and successful stage run during Shakespeare's day and continues to be one of his most popularly staged plays. Recommended as a fun break from the more serious and murderous Shakespearean tragedies.

"Why, then the world's mine oyster,
Which I with sword will open." - Pistol

Comedy, in the strictest sense, is concerned with ultimate forgiveness and reconciliation. In Shakespeare's play, "The Tempest," the protagonist, Prospero, must come to terms with his brother Antonio, who conspired to have him driven from his duchy in Milan, and with the world of social interaction in general.

Magic, Power, and Conspiracy are the foundational thematic elements through which Shakespeare effects Prospero's reintegration into human society. Thrown into a boat with his infant daughter Miranda, Prospero comes to live on a nearly deserted island in the Mediterranean Sea. Prospero's concentration on developing his proficiency in Magic caused him to become alienated from his political and social responsibilities in Milan, leading to his expulsion. His brother Antonio conspired with Alonso, king of Naples, and seized the power Prospero forsook for book-learning.

Prospero hears of a sea voyage undertaken by his enemies, and, using his Magic, whips up a storm, a great tempest, which causes his enemies to be shipwrecked on his island. On the island, Prospero exercises total power - over the education of his daughter, his slave, the deformed Caliban, and now over his enemies. He engages Ariel, a sprite, to orchestrate the division of the traveling party, and to put them through various trials to exact vengeance and ultimately, submission from them.

"The Tempest" is a fine effort from Shakespeare, but the power relations in the play are problematic. Prospero's insistent dominance over the action of the play is extremely troubling. Although he is presented as a benevolent character, Prospero's relationships with Miranda, Caliban, and Ferdinand, King Alonso's son, complicate his overall worth as a man and an authority figure. The dynamic between the slave Caliban and the drunks, Trinculo and Stephano, is also very unsettling.

Overall, "The Tempest" remains a whimsical flight of imagination, while exploring intriguing themes of education, political intrigue, and romance. Certainly, it is still a well-constructed and entertaining play after nearly four hundred years.

One of the best works by Shakespeare and also his final full play (most likely), The Tempest draws on many elements that Shakespeare used in his earlier works and adds a comic twist. Shakespeare doesn't spend much time on character development in the Tempest, other than Prospero and possibly Caliban (e.g. Miranda is the ideal chaste woman, Trinculo & Stephano are lowly schemers). However, Prospero is extremely well developed and the simple aspects of the other characters do not detract from the story at all. There are many different levels of meaning at work in the play...some see it as a pro-colonialist diatribe, others see it as Shakespeare's own swan song, where Prospero himself is based on the Bard, and Prospero's surrendering of his magical powers is representative of Shakespeare giving up his craft. I read it as both, and a million other things, and that is one of the great things about the play...it can be read in so many different ways. The structure of the play seems almost chaotic at first, with so many things going on at once. However, if you read the play over again, or read some of the essays contained in the Signet Edition, it becomes much more clear, although still open-ended. The Signet Edition is excellent, and Signets in general are. Buy this over the Folger Library editions...the footnotes here are much easier to work with and make the reading much smoother overall.

Yes, there is once again murder brewing in the play of Shakespeare but only in a comical way. Not able to claim to be a Shakespeare expert, I have only read four of his other plays. However, it is in my opinion that this be the best one, most likely because it is a comedy and is much lighter that his other plays. This classic play tells the story of the former Duke of Milan who was wrongly dethrowned by his brother. Using his magical power that originally expelled him from Milan, he is able to bring the King (Alonso), Alonso's brother (Sebastian),his own brother (Antonio) and other servants to the his mostly vacant island. Ordering about the spirit Ariel, he manipulates his way into an interesting and funny situation. There is much to gain from reading this wonderful play which is one of Shakespeares last. I recommend this book to Shakespeare lovers and even more so, to variety readers such as myself. You won't be dissapointed by the plays light mood which is much better than Shakespeares serious murder stories.

Coriolanus seems to have the critical imprimatur as one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies. Yet, this must be a misprint. Latest? Certainly. Greatest? Hardly.

For one thing, anyone with any familiarity with Shakespeare's plays must immediately note the protagonist's lack of humanity. Coriolanus' heartlessness is his chief characteristic. All the things that make him so compelling on the battlefield only serve to dull his appeal as a civilian. Since Coriolanus spends the majority of the play as a civilian, this is bad news for the audience.

There may well be tragic events in Coriolanus. However, Coriolanus falls short of great Shakespearean tragedy. The lead is not exceptional (as are the rest of Shakespeare's tragic heroes). At best, Coriolanus is a dolt who becomes a savant on the battlefield. Shakespeare telegraphs, rather than foreshadows, the tragic events of Coriolanus. This, compounded with Coriolanus' inability to carry the play, makes for a rather frenzied mush of a drama.

I recommend Coriolanus only to the Shakespearean completist. It is not one of his better works.

I never understood why this play is so unpopular. Coriolanus is a very striking figure. He is a brave and valiant soldier. Yet, he has contempt for the people he protects. In all honesty this is very common. Shakespeare never allows the intensity of this play to drop for a moment. At first Coriolanus fights to the extreme for Rome. Then he fights to the extreme against Rome. His reconciliation with his former enemy Aufidius in 4.5 is a very memorable scene. Only when he is confronted by his mother, wife, and son does he go through a crisis of conscience. It is interesting that because he begins to see the world in terms other than himself, his downfall becomes inevitable. To be sure, this play is not a masterpiece like "Julius Caesar," "Hamlet," "King Lear," or "Richard III." But it is A LOT BETTER than some of his popular plays like "Othello" or "Romeo and Juliet." I highly suggest it!

This is Shakespeare's greatest tragedy in my opinion. Everybody talks about Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and Romeo and Juliet, but Coriolanus for some reason is mostly, and unjustly, ignored. I feel that Coriolanus is the only pure tragedy among Shakespeare's works. Macbeth was a sociopath who brought all his troubles on himself; Hamlet was a confused young man who couldn't make a decision and who waited too long to get the job done; King Lear was an old fool who played games with his daughters and brought most of his problems on himself; Othello could have avoided his problems if he simply sat down and had a real conversation with his wife; and Romeo and Juliet were just a couple of immature kids who simply needed a few hard kicks in their butts. Coriolanus is different. Coriolanus was simply an honest, hard-working soldier who got the job done and told the truth, but was brought down by the guile of his enemies. That, in my opinion, is the greatest tragedy of them all.

It seems that people either love or hate this play. Many consider Coriolanus to be a very unlikable character because he is supposedly arrogant, but I disagree. Coriolanus just worked hard, told the truth, was a straight shooter, and refused to play silly games by telling people what they wanted to hear. I guess I see something different in this play than most critics and readers of Shakespeare.

Shakespeare in this play shows how love is not human but surrealistic. Love does not answer reasonable questions. It is a fundamentally unreasonable attitude that brings the lovers to absurd behaviours negating all logical, political and historical values. Love has no limits even if history will prove stronger and the lovers will be destroyed. Shakespeare beefs up this theme with a language that is so rich that we are fascinated by the words, the symbols, the symbolic value of words and acts. He is particularly rich in his style that is entirely, words, poetry, actions, and even feelings, organized following some simple symbols, particularly numerical symbols. In this play Cleopatra appears as being the core of the symbolism and she carries with her the number eleven that comes from the old English runes with the meaning of fate, of fatal defeat, of a flaw that cannot be corrected or escaped. It is her destiny to bring Antony to his defeat and death, just as it is Antony's fate to be governed by this woman and led to his own destruction because of his love for her. It also shows how the Emperor is able to use this fatal situation in order to capture all powers and to impose his absolute will on the Roman Empire. He seems to be the one who plays not well but with all the assets of the game up his sleeves, and he takes them out one at a time when the situation is ripe for these assts to become the key to is ascension to absolute power by defeating those who may oppose him.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Cleopatra may be a somewhat ambiguous female character, but I totally loved her, and Bill's portrayal of her. I don't know if he expected the reader to judge her, but I suspect not. The harshest criticism of her comes from Octavius Caesar, who himself doesn't do a single noble thing throughout the whole play. She is fully aware of the fact that she is a sensual, passionate woman- which has no negative effect on her ability to rule Egypt. Her biggest faults are her violent temper (which I suspect is just part of her passionate nature) and her tendency to lie when it suits her (either for sport or for serious politics). Antony (I feel) is actually kind of a loser compared to her. His insincerity runs deep- he marries Caesar's sister in a political move, although he had repeatedly pledged his undying love for Cleopatra. She forgives him, because she truly loves him, even though he doesn't do anything to deserve forgiveness. Antony never fully allows himself to love Cleopatra. He constantly is overreacting to the slightest indication that she might be betraying him or whatever. It is one of these overreactions (combined with an ill-timed lie on Cleo's part) that ends up destroying them both. Even in the end, Cleopatra's death is more dignified and better conceived than Antony's messy and fumbling suicide.

Anthony and Cleopatra is one of Shakespeare's difficult plays, and so I suspect the ratings on the play are low because it's a more mature play than Romeo and Juliet. Here we have two middle age lovers who part of the time are foolish with lust/love and the rest of the time are tough minded heads of state. The "tragedy" is that they can't be both and survive. This is not a play for the young folks, I'm afraid. But if you want some heavy drama where the characters are spared nothing and given no slack, read Anthony and Cleopatra (hint: Cleopatra's suicide is more political statement than a crazy wish to die with Antony). Better yet see it performed by some real actors some time.