anyway i wanted to try reading my book soon but idk which play to read first: hamlet, macbeth, or king lear
Idk what factors will influence what you’re looking to read, so here are a few:
-On a scale of most understandable to read to least I’d rank Macbeth first and Hamlet and King Lear tied for second.
-Macbeth is the shortest, followed by King Lear, and Hamlet’s the longest
- plot-wise I’d say Hamlet and King Lear are the best Shakespeare tragedies— I think most people like Hamlet better, I personally like King Lear better but it’s a very close tie. Macbeth is alright but I don’t really find the characters in Macbeth to be even remotely as interesting as the characters in Hamlet and King Lear
-You mention in your tags that you’ve read Macbeth and are familiar with the plot of Hamlet but aren’t familiar with King Lear, so to give you a bit more familiarity with it— An old King (ie Lear) decides that he straight up doesn’t feel like ruling his kingdom anymore, and tries to divide the land among his three daughters. Meanwhile some random earl decides to make some very bad and stupid decisions regarding his two sons. Everything goes very wrong and (spoiler alert but not really) everyone dies.
-Hamlet is the funniest of these three plays
-Macbeth has the famous line of “WHAT YOU EGG”
-King Lear has Edmund, which of course doesn’t mean anything to you, but my entire blog is dedicated to me talking about Edmund and how he’s definitely valid(or at least it was, last year)
-read all three of them at once lmao I dare you. Just. One scene from one play, and then one scene from the next, and then one from the next. Keep that up until you’ve read all three.
time to throw hands with @edettethegreat because MACBETH CHARACTERS ARE INTERESTING WHAT DO YOU MEAN
OK OK
Lady Macbeth is Good (not morally, but that’s not the point)
Everyone else though? Ehhh…
I like them, but they’re just not very well-developed, I guess? I made some post a while ago saying that Banquo haunting Macbeth is really funny if it’s actually Banquo’s ghost and not a hallucination, because then that would mean Banquo made the conscious choice to go to his ex-friend’s house and just Stand There Ominously to get back at him for the whole “I’m gonna kill you because of some sketchy prophecy” thing.
But since it’s probably a hallucination and not Banquo, I can’t really give him points for that one