William Shakespeare
41 libri
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream EnglishYou get a play that keeps changing its mind about love, from the quarrelling lovers in the forest to Bottom blundering through his amateur performance. The language is playful and slippery, and Puck gives the whole thing a mischievous sense that human beings are never quite in control.
- All’s Well That Ends Well EnglishHelena chases a man who plainly doesn't deserve her, and the play knows it, which is what makes it interesting. If you like your comedies uneasy, with a bed trick and an ending that only half convinces, this one will stick with you.
- Antony and Cleopatra EnglishThese two aren't young lovers, they're middle-aged, vain, magnificent messes who keep wrecking empires over each other, and you half want to shake them. Stay for Enobarbus, the dry-eyed friend whose barge speech about Cleopatra is worth the whole play.
- As You Like It EnglishOnce everyone escapes to the Forest of Arden, the play just relaxes, and you get Rosalind in disguise coaching her own lovestruck suitor in how to woo her. She runs the whole show, wittier than anyone around her, and the melancholy Jaques grumbling nearby only sweetens it.
- Coriolanus EnglishYou get a fiercely strange tragedy about pride, hunger, and the impossibility of speaking to people you despise. Coriolanus is magnificent and maddening, while Volumnia’s hard, hungry love gives the play its deepest ache; the Roman politics can feel blunt, but the language cuts.
- Cymbeline EnglishCome to it for Imogen, who stays clear-eyed and funny while everyone around her behaves appallingly (Iachimo hiding in a trunk to spy on her is genuinely creepy). The plot is a wild tangle, but the last scene, where every secret unravels at once, is weirdly satisfying.
- Edward III EnglishYou get a rough, episodic history play with flashes of Shakespearean energy, especially in Edward’s pursuit of the Countess of Salisbury and the Black Prince’s battlefield speeches. It’s uneven and not wholly Shakespeare’s, but the mix of courtly temptation, war, and sudden moral seriousness makes it an intriguing afternoon read.
- Hamlet EnglishYou get a Hamlet who is grief-stricken, sharp-tongued, theatrical, and often genuinely funny, not just a gloomy prince. The play’s strange shifts, from the Players’ performance to the graveyard conversation, make reading it feel like thinking alongside someone who can’t stop testing what’s real.
- Hamlet PortuguêsUm príncipe fica a saber pelo fantasma do pai que o tio é um assassino, e depois passa a peça a pensar, a gracejar e a adiar. Hamlet é mais afiado e mais engraçado do que a sua fama, e vai reconhecer mais falas do que espera.
- Henry IV, Part I EnglishFalstaff alone is worth it, this huge lying coward who somehow makes you love him, and watching Prince Hal drink with him while quietly planning to outgrow him gets under your skin. Funnier than you expect from a history play, and sadder too.
- Henry IV, Part II EnglishYou get a more reflective, melancholy Shakespeare here, with Hal facing the weight of kingship while Falstaff turns swagger and self-pity into something unexpectedly sad. The play moves more slowly than Part I, but its weary humor and sense of a country trying to recover linger.
- Henry V EnglishRead it for the night before Agincourt, when Hal walks disguised among his soldiers and gets argued with about whether his war is even just. The big speeches soar, sure, but the quiet doubts underneath are what stick, and the Chorus keeps apologizing that a stage can't hold it all.
- Henry VI, Part I EnglishYou get Talbot’s stern, oddly moving devotion to England, Joan of Arc rendered as both formidable and unsettling, and a kingdom already fraying under proud nobles and a weak king. It’s episodic and politically blunt, but the clash between heroic legend and ugly factionalism gives the play real bite.
- Henry VI, Part II EnglishHonestly the middle Henry VI is the fun one: court schemers picking apart poor Duke Humphrey while the king prays instead of ruling, then Jack Cade's rebellion turns the whole thing into gleeful anarchy. If you like watching power slip through weak hands, this scratches that itch.
- Henry VI, Part III EnglishGrim, relentless, and worth it for watching Richard of Gloucester wake up mid-play and decide to be a villain, in a soliloquy that basically births Richard III. If battle-heavy history isn't your thing, skip it, but Margaret taunting York with a paper crown is genuinely chilling.
- Henry VIII EnglishYou’ll like it for its grand, ceremonial feel and the sharp human cost beneath the pageantry, especially in Katherine of Aragon’s dignity and Wolsey’s sudden collapse. It’s episodic and more interested in public power than intimate character, so expect a stately history play rather than another Hamlet.
- Julius Caesar EnglishYou get political persuasion at close range: Brutus speaks as if reason can keep a republic clean, while Cassius understands how fear and resentment move people. The funeral speeches are thrilling to read aloud, but the play leaves you with uneasy questions about honor, crowds, and unintended consequences.
- King John EnglishYou get a politically slippery Shakespeare, full of wavering loyalties, church pressure, and the Bastard Faulconbridge’s sharp, surprisingly modern commentary. It can feel episodic, but Constance’s fierce grief and the play’s uneasy question of who deserves a crown give it a darker charge than its neglected reputation suggests.
- King Lear EnglishYou get a brutal, strange study of pride and love, with Lear raging on the heath while his Fool keeps puncturing the grandeur. It’s bleak and sometimes deliberately difficult, but the language keeps opening up new depths each time you return to it.
- Sulla sua isola, il mago in esilio Prospero scatena una tempesta per far naufragare i vecchi nemici sulla riva, con lo spirito Ariel ai suoi ordini e il furioso Calibano in catene. È strana, indulgente e breve, e piena di musica.
- Love’s Labour’s Lost EnglishYou get Shakespeare at his most verbally playful here, with four men making grand vows to avoid women and immediately tripping over their own love letters. The wit is dense and sometimes showy, but the women’s clear-eyed teasing gives the comedy real bite, and the late change in mood leaves it pleasantly unsettled.
- Macbeth EnglishYou get a dark, tightly wound tragedy where Macbeth’s imagination turns ambition into terror, and Lady Macbeth’s brisk certainty slowly gives way to something more fragile. The witches, the blood, and the repeated images of sleeplessness make the play feel feverish, especially aloud, though its compressed language takes a little patience.
- Measure for Measure EnglishShakespeare in a sour, fascinating mood: Angelo, the ice-cold deputy, propositions a novice nun and the play just sits with that ugliness. If you like your comedies uneasy, with an ending that leaves you arguing at the table, this one lingers.
- Much Ado About Nothing EnglishBeatrice and Benedick spend the whole play insulting each other so cleverly you'll want to read their scenes twice, and watching their friends trick them into admitting the obvious is pure pleasure. There's a nasty turn with Hero midway, but the comedy earns its way back.
- Othello EnglishIago talks to you directly, and the awful thing is you almost enjoy his company while he wrecks a good man's life over a handkerchief and some careful hints. It's painful in the way only watching preventable disaster is, so save it for when you can take that.
- Pericles EnglishFair warning, the first couple of acts are clunky (Shakespeare probably didn't write them), but stick around for Marina, who talks her way out of a brothel with sheer moral force, and a father-daughter reunion that can leave you quietly wrecked. Strange, sea-tossed, worth it.
- Poetry EnglishYou get the sonnets’ shifting voices, from tender devotion to jealousy and self-reproach, alongside the lush, mischievous stories of Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. Read it slowly; the wordplay can feel dense, but individual lines keep opening up long after you’ve put it down.
- Richard II EnglishRichard is unbearable while he's winning and mesmerizing once he starts to lose, talking himself into and out of kingship in some of the most musical verse Shakespeare wrote. It's all poetry and no sword fights, so come for the language or not at all.
- Richard III EnglishRichard talks straight to you from the first speech, so you end up half rooting for a murderer and enjoying it, especially when he woos Anne over her father-in-law's coffin. If you like villains who make you complicit, this moves fast and never apologizes.
- Romeo and Juliet EnglishYou get the rush of Juliet’s balcony scene, but also the play’s darker comedy, especially Mercutio’s wit and the adults’ baffling failures. It moves quickly, sounds beautiful aloud, and lets you feel how tenderness and impulsiveness can share the same breath.
- The Comedy of Errors EnglishYou get a wonderfully fast, physical farce from the twin Antipholuses and twin Dromios, with everyone confidently mistaking the wrong man for someone they know. It’s deliberately slight and noisy, but the escalating confusion, especially around Adriana’s furious domestic arguments, makes Shakespeare feel surprisingly loose and playful.
- The Merchant of Venice EnglishThe comedy bits are light (Portia testing suitors with riddle caskets), but Shylock's "hath not a Jew eyes" speech will sit with you for days. It's uncomfortable, deliberately or not, and that tension is exactly why it's worth arguing about afterward.
- The Merry Wives of Windsor EnglishYou get Falstaff at his most shameless, trying to seduce two respectable wives and being cheerfully outwitted by both. The plotting is broad, quick, and pleasantly ridiculous, with disguises, pranks, and a final woodland humiliation, so you’ll enjoy it most when you want Shakespeare being openly comic rather than profound.
- The Taming of the Shrew EnglishThe fun is watching Kate and Petruchio trade insults at full speed, two clever people who've finally met their match. Fair warning, the "taming" itself sits uneasily now, and Kate's last speech will either charm you or make you argue with the page.
- The Tempest EnglishYou spend time on an island with Prospero, Ariel, and Caliban, where magic, resentment, and theatrical illusion keep changing the ground beneath you. It’s airy and strange rather than tightly plotted, but the movement toward forgiveness gives the play a quietly human weight.
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona EnglishEarly, slight, and a bit lumpy (the ending will make you yelp), but Launce's monologues to his stone-faced dog Crab are some of the funniest pages Shakespeare wrote, and Julia in disguise carries real ache. Read it if you like watching genius warm up.
- The Winter’s Tale EnglishYou get Shakespeare at his strangest here: Leontes’ jealousy makes the early scenes painfully claustrophobic, then Paulina’s fierce intelligence and a sudden pastoral brightness change the air. It’s uneven and openly theatrical, but its movement from damage toward forgiveness stays with you.
- Timon of Athens EnglishYou’ll appreciate its strange, abrasive energy: Timon’s lavish generosity curdles into furious contempt, while Apemantus needles him with the honesty nobody else will risk. It’s a jagged, unfinished-feeling play, but if you like Shakespeare when he’s bitter, funny, and morally unruly, it stays with you.
- Titus Andronicus EnglishFair warning, this is Shakespeare at his most lurid, a revenge spiral that keeps outdoing its own cruelty, and Aaron might be his most gleefully unrepentant villain. If you like your tragedy pulpy and unhinged rather than stately, you'll have a grim good time.
- Troilus and Cressida EnglishYou get Shakespeare at his most sour and slippery here: Troilus and Cressida’s love story keeps colliding with Pandarus’s bawdy meddling, while Ulysses and Hector make the Trojan War feel tawdry rather than heroic. It’s strange, funny, and deliberately hard to settle into, but richly rewarding.
- Twelfth Night EnglishYou get Viola’s clever, tender balancing act, Malvolio’s wonderfully sour self-importance, and a comedy that keeps slipping between farce and real loneliness. The mistaken identities can feel deliberately tangled, but the language is playful enough to reward reading aloud, especially when the characters are trying hardest to hide what they want.