Shakespeare's Plays

Shakespeare was a master with his pen, his poems themselves were spectacular but his plays were simply outstanding. I've only studied one of Shakespeare's 37 plays and from what I've read so far, Im pleasantly surprised. I've heard stories of "the dreaded Shakespeare" and have heard many a tale of high school 'survivors' ranting on about the horrors they encountered trying to just comprehend the words nonetheless understand the meaning and metaphors. I'm praying that next year isn't going to be a sudden shock as to how difficult Shakespeare's plays truly are... I guess I'll just have to wait and see...

Shakespeare has written many plays, that much is a given, some of his most acclaimed are: Romeo and Juliet, the tale of two young, star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately reconcile their feuding families; Hamlet, a tale set in the Kingdom of Denmark, the play dramatizes the revenge Prince Hamlet is instructed to commit on his uncle Claudius, who murdered King Hamlet - brother of Claudius and father of Hamlet - and then succeeded to the throne and took as his wife the murdered king's wife Gertrude; and Macbeth a play set in Scotland, "the play dramatizes the corrosive psychological and political effects produced when evil is chosen as a way to fulfill the ambition for power." These are just a few, for a full link of all the plays click here.

Romeo And Juliet
First of all, let's break down Shakespeare's earliest play of the three mentioned, Romeo and Juliet. Since it'd be pretty boring and standard for me to just sit here and give the rundown/ synopsis of his plays I'd rather just talk about what they meant and things like that! Well for starters, Romeo and Juliet was Shakespeare's 10th ever play written and may have been his most popular. In fact it's inline with Hamlet as his most frequently performed plays. And since I personally have not yet had the pleasure of reading Romeo and Juliet, I'll just be forced to trust a few online 'critics', because if there's one thing I know about the internet, it's that EVERYTHING online is absolutely, undoubtably true. As I was saying, as per what I have discovered online, scholars have found it very difficult to find one 
underlying theme to the entire play. One opinion about the theme is that it is a discovery by the characters that human beings are neither wholly nor wholly evil but are instead more or less alike. But obviously this is not the only suggestion for a possible main theme, there are many that don't have much support in any direction but instead there is a general consensus that instead, Shakespeare used a plethora of individual themes intertwined complexly. These themes include: love, fate and chance, duality and time. Generally many critics favor Romeo and Juliet is because of Shakespeare's poetic 

This is Samuel Johnson, and in my opinion, the greatest
Coincidence ever. Out of the hundreds of critics, I
randomly selected a meme.

 dramatic structure, such as his ability to shift between comedy and tragedy to implement tension, his use of minor characters in the play, and his use of sub-plots to enrich the entire storyline. In the early times of it's release, there were a substantial amount of critics in fact, one critic even said "it is a play of itself the worst that I ever heard in my life." and the focal reason was that it did not follow the rule that all dramas at that day and age did, this was that "the tragedy must occur by some character flaw, not merely by fate" wrote Samuel Johnson


Macbeth
Now let's move on to the one play I actually read and saw live, although, I'm not sure it really counted as it was musical... NEVERTHELESS, we shall continue. Personally I've heard of people talk about their distaste for Macbeth, but maybe because of it's short length making the play fast paced, I thoroughly enjoyed Macbeth. In fact, Macbeth is surprisingly, Shakespeare's shortest play and shows us the dangers of picking evil as a way to obtain great power. Just to quickly summarize it, the play is about a brave scottish soldier, Macbeth, who is corrupted by evil and is spurred on by his wife to murder to get to the throne. Soon after, Macbeth becomes filled with guilt and paranoia and soon becomes a tyrannical leader of his kingdom and results in committing more and more murders to remove doubt and safeguard his throne. The bloodbath and war that followed take Macbeth and Lady Macbeth into the realms of arrogance, madness and death. The play actually has a background history in theater as being "cursed" and it's title is not addressed, rather it is referred to as "The Scottish Play", apparently this is because some believe the curse of the three witches was true! And thus if the name is spoken aloud in the theater, other than in rehearsal, the play is destined for disaster.

Next is the interesting bit, the themes. After reading the play, all three themes I discovered online are all equally accurate. The first being the corrupting power of unchecked ambition, the second being the relationship between cruelty and masculinity and finally, the difference between kingship and tyranny. I'll address the theme

Macbeth Murdering King Duncan

I find most interesting. The theme of how unchecked ambition leads to corruption is seen in the two main characters. Macbeth begins the play as a brave and noble Scottish general who doesn't seem capable of committing evil deeds, however it's clear how is lust for power and advancement leads to his demise. Against his better judgement he chooses to murder King Duncan to rise to the throne but is then eaten away by guilt and paranoia. By the end of the play he is led to a state of almost "frantic, boastful madness". Lady Macbeth, on the other hand, attempts to complete her goals with greater aspiration, however she seems to be less capable of withstanding the repercussions of her treasonous actions. Apparently she is one of Shakespeare's "Most forcefully drawn female characters" as she edges on her husband to commit murder after murder and urges him to be strong but she is eventually led to distraction and goes mad and guilt ridden, so much so that she ends up murdering herself at the end of the play.

Hamlet
Next let's move on to Shakespeare's next play, Hamlet. Hamlet was Shakespeare's longest play and is performed the most around the world. And again, I am yet to read Hamlet so a fair amount of research will be required for the following exert. the play centers around Hamlet's indecision in how he plans to avenge his father (The King)'s death Shakespeare's most famous quote is in the play as well, the fabled "To be or not to be, that is the question" I think the big deal about Hamlet is how many scholars adore Hamlet because of it's new form of storyline, instead of the common idea of struggles with multiple individuals, it showcases struggles within himself. Most novels in this day and age see this kind of portrayal all the time, but this was really the beginning of having such a developed and mysterious character.

The Ghost in Hamlet

As was the case with Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet', Hamlet featured many themes however I think the one that was most quintessential theme was the impossibility of certainty. That's what sets this play apart, in most plays the action you expect to see revolves around conflicts between others while in Hamlet it centers around his own indecisiveness, for instance there are many questions like Can we certain knowledge about ghosts? Is this ghost what it claims to be or an evil fiend? Moving into more reality based questions: How can we know things about a murder that had no witnesses? Moreover, this play is seen as a testament to how indecisiveness led to Hamlet's failure to act appropriately. Personally I find this most interesting as it makes us ponder how much of our lives are built and based on things we don't know. Me being the chemistry/ physics nerd I am find this very insightful in the basis of science and what we REALLY know, I mean to be honest, there are so many things that we take for granted as "facts" that are really theories. The reason why I mentioned physics and chemistry is, as a perfect example, just look at all the scientific facts that were once that to be absolutely true and we then later found out were completely false. Just a few hundred years ago, chemists believed that the atom was the smallest thing in the universe, WRONG! Only a 3 years ago did we believe the expansion of the universe was slowing down, WRONG!  I mean for pete's sake, gravity is just a theory! I find this interesting and I ponder this matter quite frequently in the sanctity of my own mine, "Is anything that we know today true"? I guess the best way to answer this is to quote the great Socrates, "True knowledge is knowing that you know nothing."