As long as we’re making lists, how about our top five scenes? I made my list (see below), feel free to play along in the comments, or on your own blog, or both. As before, this list is based on my own personal preferences at this particular moment. I’ll be using the scene divisions from Bartleby.com.

And, as before, my top five list has twenty-five entries. Enjoy!

25. A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Act 5, Scene 1
I had to include the Pyramus & Thisby performance at the end of Midsummer. The happy ending to the real story has already come, and now we can just relax and enjoy the show.

24. Hamlet: Act 3, Scene 4
The effect of Hamlet’s berating his mother in her bedchamber, and raising the tension until it is released by his killing Polonius, is devastating on stage. When the ghost arrives, we must listen.

23. King John: Act 1, Scene 1
Robert Faulconbridge claims that his brother Philip is a bastard, not entitled to his father’s lands. King John and his mother recognize the madcap Philip as natural son to the late King Richard, and welcome him into the royal family.

22. Richard the Third: Act 1, Scene 2
Richard has killed Anne’s husband and his father. He woos her and wins her hand, reveling in overcoming impossible odds. There is some really elegant use of language in this scene.

21. The Comedy of Errors: Act 3, Scene 1
This scene cracks me up. Antipholus of Ephesus is locked out of his house, because his wife thinks he’s inside. Actually, it’s his long lost twin brother. The rolling verse makes the scene.

20. Twelfth Night: Act 2, Scene 4
Viola is in love with Orsino, but he thinks she’s a boy. She tells him of her love using a supposed sister. Orsino is in love too, and both of their passions are stirred by a song. This scene “gives a very echo to the seat where love is throned.”

19. Measure for Measure: Act 2, Scene 4
Angelo has sentenced Isabella’s brother to death, but he offers to release him in exchange for sex. She tells him to stick it. But now she’s in a bind. In the hands of talented actors, this scene kills.

18. Henry the Sixth, Part Three: Act 1, Scene 4
The Duke of York has made a claim to the throne, but now is captured by Queen Margaret who taunts him with a paper crown and a napkin dipped in the blood of his dead son. He curses her, and she has him killed. “Off with his head!”

17. As You Like It: Act 5, Scene 4
Rosalind and Celia reveal their true identities to their astonished lovers. And if four weddings and some songs aren’t enough of a happy ending, the banished Duke is restored. I couldn’t resist including it.

16. King Lear: Act 1, Scene 1
This scene could be a play unto itself. Cordelia refuses to participate in flattering her father for his land and is banished. But then she weds the King of France and lives happily ever … no, wait.

15. Othello: Act 3, Scene 3
Through subtle innuendo and hints of suspicion, Iago brings Othello from being completely free of suspicion toward Desdemona, to a jealous rage against her.

14. Measure for Measure: Act 5, Scene 1
Shakespeare spent the whole play setting up the dominoes and lets them fall in this final scene. Isabella has a big choice to make, and she takes the high road. But what about her final choice? Shakespeare doesn’t say.

13. Macbeth: Act 5, Scene 7
The prophecies have all come true, but Macbeth isn’t ready to give up the crown yet, let alone the ghost. In defiance of law, of country, of nature, and of fate itself, he fights. And he dies.

12. Hamlet: Act 5, Scene 1
Hamlet jokes and reflects on death with a gravedigger and Horatio before learning the grave is to be Ophelia’s. And the gravedigger started working the day Hamlet was born. Think about that for a moment.

11. Macbeth: Act 1, Scene 7
Lady Macbeth goads Macbeth into regicide by attacking his manhood and questioning his love. He’s against killing the king on moral grounds, until she presents a plan with a good chance of working, and then he’s in.

10. Henry the Fourth, Part One: Act 2, Scene 4
A fun tavern scene with Jack Falstaff telling tall tales, and a role-playing exercise that turns sour.

9. King Lear: Act 5, Scene 3
The sisters undo themselves. Edgar defeats his treacherous brother Edmund. And then Lear dies with Cordelia in his arms. Good has triumphed over evil, but what spoils are left for the victor?

8. Richard the Third: Act 5, Scene 3
The ghosts of all Richard’s victims disturb his rest the night before the decisive battle. In the morning, he and Richmond deliver orations to their troops, contrasting their different leadership styles.

7. Hamlet: Act 3, Scene 1
The “To be, or not to be” soliloquy is great, but the scene with Ophelia that follows is what makes the list. Love has turned to resentment and bitter mistrust. He must continue to play mad, but his actual sanity is now at risk.

6. Julius Caesar: Act 3, Scene 2
At Caesar’s funeral, Antony, who has promised not to speak ill of the conspirators, delivers an oration that turns the crowd against them. It’s a testament to the power of good rhetoric, and the power of love and loyalty.

5. Othello: Act 5, Scene 2
Othello murders Desdemona and then discovers the truth of the plot against him. Othello’s passionate speeches of angst and remorse are contrasted with Iago’s dispassionate demanor after being caught.

4. A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Act 3, Scene 2
The four lovers, giddy with love’s madness, quarrel to the shock and amusement of the fairies. After going to much trouble to set it up, Shakespeare doesn’t let us down. This is just pure fun.

3. Macbeth: Act 4, Scene 1
Obsessed with succession, Macbeth demands answers from the witches, who tell him much more than he really wants to know. The witches’ brew part alone is for the ages. “Double, double, toil and trouble…”

2. King Lear: Act 4, Scene 6
The mad Lear meets the blind Gloucester. Lear’s speech is filled with sense, and yet is nonsense. Gloucester, who has by now realized he was blind when he had eyes, now says he sees the world feelingly. Also notable is Edgar pretending to lead his blind father to the edge of a cliff. Heartbreaking.

1. Richard the Third: Act 4, Scene 4
By the fourth scene of the fourth act of the fourth play in the series, most of the bad stuff that was going to happen has already happened. The widows gather and compare their losses. Then Richard, the cause of their misery, enters. He recieves a blistering rebuke from his own mother. He is then left on stage with his sister-in-law, whose two sons he has murdered. And he asks her for the hand of her daughter, his niece, in marriage. Now that’s chutzpah!

The Shakespeare Geek has posted his top five favorite Shakespeare plays, based on another blogger’s post listing his top five favorite Shakespeare plays.

Man, how can you do that? I tried it myself, but the list got a little out of hand. My top five list turns out to have twenty-five plays in it. Bear with me. Here they are, in the ascending order of my preference today. If I made the same list tomorrow, it might be different.

25. The Tempest – Critics deny this is Shakespeare’s farewell to the theatre, but read it and decide for yourself. Prospero, Ariel, Caliban, and Miranda are unique in Shakespeare, strange for so late a play.

24. Much Ado About Nothing – There is a lot in this play to recommend, but Beatrice and Benedick are the most fun. I’m also a fan of Dogberry the Constable and, in his own way, Don John.

23. The Winter’s Tale – I like this play… not as much as other people may like it, but I like it well enough. There are some great speeches in the play, and more than a few moments that kill on stage.

22. Henry the Sixth, Part Three – The paper crown scene alone should bring this play some recognition. I also enjoy the early character development of Richard Gloucester, the future King Richard III.

21. Henry the Fourth, Part Two – Vibrant tavern scenes, darkly comic scenes, frenetic battle scenes, and one intense standoff between King Henry and his son Hal. Don’t miss the last five minutes.

20. The Comedy of Errors – This play can be a lot of fun if you accept it on its own terms. The scene where Antipholus of Ephesus is locked out of his house is reason enough to make the list.

19. Cymbeline – This is a hidden treasure, filled with great scenes and powerful moments. It has a beautiful fairy-tale quality, strong characters, passionate poetry, and a satisfying ending. More here.

18. The Taming of the Shrew – The first scene between Kate and Petruchio is an all-time classic, and the piece as a whole is a wonderful bit of inspired silliness. The taming can be a bit jarring, though.

17. Romeo and Juliet – I think it would be hard for anyone to make a Top Five and Twenty list of favorite Shakespeare plays and not include Romeo & Juliet. The poetic language is beautiful.

16. Twelfth Night – There’s a lot going on in this play, and it all works on stage. Don’t let the slapstick elements fool you into thinking this is an unsophisticated play. It isn’t.

15. The Merchant of Venice – This is another play with a rich complexity that seems to burst out of its fairy-tale frame, which is what allows the darker elements of the play finally to surface.

14. Henry the Fourth, Part One – Who could resist the irrepressible Falstaff, and his relationship with the young Prince Hal? This play has my favorite tavern scene, and lets not forget Hotspur either.

13. King John – Shakespeare wrote this play just after the death of his eleven-year-old son, and the influence of that event on this play is breathtaking. Also, the Bastard is a character well worth knowing.

12. Richard the Second – For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground and talk about the richly complex symbolism and beautiful flowing poetry in this play. Go and fetch me a looking glass.

11. Antony and Cleopatra – It’s a love story. It’s a war epic. It’s a geopolitical thriller. It’s the greatest story in history told by history’s greatest storyteller. This is not your high school Romeo and Juliet.

10. Henry the Fifth – This is a tight, passionate, stirring play. It’s also a Rorschach test for how you feel about war. Each scene is a mini-masterpiece, and the use of language is extraordinary.

9. Julius Caesar – This powerful tale of politics, rhetoric, and betrayal in Ancient Rome may be a schoolhouse classic, but it’s a better read as an adult. I find myself coming back again and again.

8. Measure for Measure – Darker and more overtly sexual than most of Shakespeare’s other comedies, this play explores both the depths of depravity and the better angels of human nature.

7. As You Like It – This Shakespearean fairy tale is filled with laughs, love, and music. Shakespeare knew what audiences liked, and he gave it to them in this aptly named comedy.

6. A Midsummer Night’s Dream – One can only imagine what the effect must have been of having fairies and nobles and workmen wrapped up in the same story on stage. One for the ages.

5. Othello – This is a true masterpiece: in characterization, plot structure, emotion, pacing, poetic language, potency, and thematic cohesion. This is how to write a play, my friends.

4. Macbeth – I’ve always found this play extremely riveting from beginning to end. The witches prophesy Macbeth will be King, setting a chain of events irrevocably in motion. Spellbinding.

3. Hamlet – Never before or since has there been such an intimately detailed character study. Was he mad? My father once said, “if you took that close a look at any of our minds, we’d all seem mad.”

2. King Lear – I make new discoveries every time I read this play, and not just discoveries about the play. This may be the greatest thing ever written in the English language. I may never fully grasp it.

1. Richard the Third – My personal favorite, and a guilty pleasure at that. Somehow, Shakespeare makes us root for the bad guy. Is there a secret evil genius within us that he speaks to? I’ll never admit to it.

So those are my top five favorite Shakespeare plays. Feel free to post your top five favorite Shakespeare plays in the comments, however many there may happen to be.

While I was away, the Shakespeare Geek has been blogging up a storm. He always manages to find such great nuggets of Shakespearia in the digital forest. A few notable items that either I got from him, or he beat me to:

• There’s a new Showtime series on The Tudors with the first two episodes posted online. If this looks like it’s going to be any good, perhaps we will discuss it here, replacing the soon-to-be-retired Slings & Arrows thread each Sunday. What do you think?
• A map of almost all the places quoted in Shakespeare available in both Google Maps and Google Earth versions. This has some nice classroom applications, particularly in teaching history. Compare, for example, the relative locations of Pericles and Antony and Cleopatra around the eastern Mediterranean. Pericles takes place in the Hellenistic period, which came to an end with the events of Antony and Cleopatra, so comparing their relative locations can be useful. You know, for those times when you’re studying Pericles and Antony and Cleopatra. It was just an example.
• A somewhat new Shakespeare wiki. This looks like it’s going to be able to go much more in depth into Shakespeare than Wikipedia allows. I have to use the future tense, because right now it looks like the giant hole in the ground that is dug before a majestic building is erected. Can’t wait to see the view.
• Hamlet on trial for the murder of Polonius, presided over by a Supreme Court Justice, as part of the six month Shakespeare in Washington festival. I was in DC on Thursday, but missed the trial in favor of Richard III at the Shakespeare Theatre Company. But it caught my eye because my grad students have been talking about using the trial as a classroom activity. We’ve discussed the activity in connection with Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Othello, The Merchant of Venice, King Lear, and Measure for Measure.

There’s more stuff over there if you want to check it out. I like to link to him every now and then because I know there are some who come to this site looking for lots of cool Shakespeare stuff, and instead find postings about Venn diagrams, killer robots, and Charlie the Unicorn. His is the site you were looking for. But do come back tomorrow for the Thursday Morning Riddle.

SuchShakespeareStuff is now Shakespeare Geek. I was checking out the links over there when I came across a post by someone named Cesario listing her ten unpopular opinions about Shakespeare. I don’t agree with everything she says, but I applaud people who are willing to post unpopular opinions, and I’d like to add my twopence to the conversation.

1. This stuff about Shakespeare being [someone else] is arrant nonsense.

Strongly agree. There’s no good evidence that this is true, and most of the arguments you hear are either elitist or overly-ambitious.

2. Twelfth Night is at its root a deeply creepy and disturbing play

Mildly agree. The play does have a dark side, to be sure. The Andrew subplot is creepy, the Malvolio subplot is disturbing, and did I hear Orsino correctly in the last scene? He’s actually going to kill Cesario to spite Olivia?

3. Shylock is not the hero of Merchant of Venice. He is the villain.

Strongly agree. If you’ve read the play, it’s hard to make the case otherwise.

4. The Macbeths have the best marriage in all Shakespeare.

Mildly disagree. I’ve heard Harold Bloom express this opinion, and I get the equal partnership aspect, but I find their relationship too dysfunctional and codependent to pay them this compliment. The title “Best Marriage in Shakespeare” is a dubious honor, but I think I’d have to go with Brutus and Portia. They seem like they have a really strong relationship. The fact that it can be torn apart by the assassination is a testament to the earth-shattering significance of that event. We won’t count the marriages at the end of the comedies, because who knows how they’ll fare?

5. Lear’s Fool is a subjective reality experienced only by Lear himself.

Mildly disagree, though I like your spirit. Both Goneril and Kent talk directly to the Fool, and others talk about him (such as the Gentleman that Kent meets in the storm). I do think there’s an alter ego reading possible here, but perhaps this is more of a symbolic idea than something that’s literally demonstrable in the play.

6. Hamlet: not really a play.

Strongly disagree. Hamlet is a play. It has searingly powerful dramatic dialogue, a story arc, and character development. There are some stage plays that I would say are not really plays, but Hamlet is a play through and through.

7. I Henry VI is a better play than Richard III.

Strongly disagree, though I think I Henry VI is highly underrated. I also think that Richard III is a much better play after you’ve read the three Henry VI plays. The characters in Richard III have a lot of history, and understanding that history helps explain a lot of their interactions.

8. Claudio and Hero = so doomed.

Strongly disagree. This is the stereotypical couple of Shakespeare’s day. These are the people who wed unthinkingly and play their roles, living happily ever after because they never consider that they may not. They are used by Shakespeare to contrast the much more interesting Beatrice and Benedick who question everything about love.

9. I think Shakespeare was probably Catholic.

No opinion, though there is some reason to believe he may have been. I’m hesitant to make any generalizations about Shakespeare based on his writings, because he was so good at speaking from so many different points of view that it’s impossible to know what’s really Shakespeare himself. Shakespeare may very well have been a soldier, a king, a murderer, a nobleman, a shrew, a fairy, a Moor, an ancient Egyptian queen, or a boatswain. He’s much too clever for me to guess.

10. Titus Andronicus is a farce and would be best played as a Monty Python skit.

Mildly agree. I don’t think the farce is intentional, but playing it as a Monty Python skit would be an improvement.

Another plug for today’s Slings & Arrows marathon at 3pm on Sundance.

Again, this is Must See TV for Shakespeare fans and theatre folk, and well worth the watching for everyone else. It’s hysterically funny, true to life, and really gets at the heart of what it means to be passionate about Shakespeare.

The actors are all top-notch. They’re Canadian, so you might not recognize them, but that just adds to their believability. Fans of Kids in the Hall or Saturday Night Live will be familiar with Mark McKinney. And if you only know Rachel McAdams as The Hot Chick or one of the Mean Girls, then Season One will show you a whole new Rachel McAdams.

Sundance is showing all six episodes of Season One of Slings & Arrows today, Sunday, from 3pm to 8pm. This is the Hamlet season. Just start watching at 3pm, and if you’re not hooked by the end of the theme song, there’s no need to watch any further.

All six episodes of Season Two are availble on Time Warner Cable’s On Demand (under “Free Movies on Demand”), if you have it. This is the Macbeth season.

Season Three starts February 18 at 8pm. This will be the King Lear season. I’m giddy with anticipation in that very special Shakespeare Teacher way.

You can use the comments section of this post to discuss Season One. If there actually turns out to be any interest, I can start putting up a weekly post so we can discuss Season Three.

Ladies and gentlemen, set your TiVos. Sundance is showing all six episodes of Season One of Slings & Arrows this Sunday, February 11, from 3pm to 8pm.

This is absolutely Must See TV for Shakespeare fans or theatre folk, and actually some pretty good viewing for everyone else, too. It’s a 50-minute comedy/drama that follows the various personalities in a fictional Canadian Shakespeare Festival as they put together a production of a play over the course of a six-episode season: Hamlet in Season One, and Macbeth in Season Two. Season Three starts February 18 at 8pm. It looks like they’re going to be doing King Lear.

The show isn’t about the Shakespeare per se, but I have to say that they get the Shakespeare part right. And when Shakespeare is done right…

So check out that marathon on Sunday. You’ll be glad you did.

Before clinical depression was first diagnosed, a person afflicted with the condition was referred to as melancholy. It was believed that our physical and emotional states were determined by the distribution of the four humours, or bodily fluids, each of which had a different effect if it fell out of balance. If you had an excess of black bile, for example, you were melancholic, and would seem moody and sad. Today, we understand this to be depression, but in Shakespeare’s time, the humours were the best science of the day, and the affliction was called melancholy.

Melancholy can be found throughout Shakespeare. Don John begins Much Ado About Nothing in a sadness. Hamlet is definitely depressed, and is often given the nickname The Melancholy Dane. You might argue that they both have reason to be. But Antonio’s first line of The Merchant of Venice, in fact the first line of the play, “In sooth, I know not why I am so sad,” leaves little doubt that Shakespeare was familiar with the concept of clinical depression by another name.

After Hamlet, perhaps the most famous melancholic in Shakespeare is Jaques from As You Like It. He is referred to in the play as “the melancholy Jaques” and even seems to take some pleasure in the description himself. From this, we might gather that he is depressed as well. But I would actually argue that he’s bipolar.

Bipolar disorder (which also used to be misdiagnosed as melancholy) is characterized by extreme mood swings between depression and bursts of manic energy. People with bipolar disorder used to be called manic depressive. And even though it wasn’t known about in Shakespeare’s time, Shakespeare must have been aware of different ways that “melancholy” affected certain people, and wrote Jaques as bipolar. How else can we explain the outburst by “the melancholy Jaques” in the beginning of Act 2, Scene 7:

A fool, a fool! I met a fool i’ the forest,
A motley fool; a miserable world!
As I do live by food, I met a fool;
Who laid him down and bask’d him in the sun,
And rail’d on Lady Fortune in good terms,
In good set terms, and yet a motley fool.
“Good morrow, fool,” quoth I. “No, sir,” quoth he,
“Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune.”
And then he drew a dial from his poke,
And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
Says very wisely, “It is ten o’clock;
Thus may we see,” quoth he, “how the world wags:
“Tis but an hour ago since it was nine,
And after one hour more ’twill be eleven;
And so, from hour to hour we ripe and ripe,
And then from hour to hour we rot and rot,
And thereby hangs a tale.” When I did hear
The motley fool thus moral on the time,
My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,
That fools should be so deep-contemplative,
And I did laugh sans intermission
An hour by his dial. O noble fool!
A worthy fool! Motley’s the only wear.

Does that sound depressed to you? Does it sound neutral? Or does it sound manic? In addition to the numerous exclamation points, the exaggerated repetition (used as an emphatic) and run-on sentences (notice how many lines begin with “And”) seem to indicate manic speech patterns. Hamlet doesn’t have any speeches like that, or if he does, they are soliloquies, and can be more closely equated to the thoughts racing through his own mind than to his behavior in public.

Depression is marked by listlessness and inaction. Hamlet is almost defined by his inaction. He is withdrawn and other characters must come to him. But throughout As You Like It, Jaques actively seeks out relationships and interactions with the other characters, first with Amiens and the other lords, then with Touchstone (off-stage), then with the Duke Senior and his assembly, then with Orlando (!), then with Touchstone again, then with Ganymede/Rosalind (!!), and finally with Duke Frederick (!!!). He may be bitter and dismissive, but he can hardly be called aloof or withdrawn. When we first hear of Jaques, he is being mocked by his friends for his melancholy, but their story is of an extremely compassionate and sensitive soul who weeps for a wounded deer.

Jaques: Melancholic, Misunderstood, Bipolar.

Oh yeah, and Bottom from A Midsummer Night’s Dream clearly has adult ADHD with delusions of grandeur. A topic, perhaps, for another time.