How to Get Started with Shakespeare

The problem with reading Shakespeare is that it can be hard to know where to start. He wrote tragedy, comedy, romances (neither tragedy nor comedy), history plays and also poetry. He described political intrigue, fantastical beings, love, family…. all in a grand total of 38 plays, 154 sonnets and at least 2 major long poems. So, where should you start?

Typically, most of us encounter Shakespeare at school or whilst studying English. Plays that are popular on English Literature curricula include Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet and Antony and Cleopatra. In my case, I also read The Winter’s Tale at school.

In terms of the literary canon, Hamlet is right at its apex with King Lear and Othello not far behind.

One question that many people ask before reading Shakespeare is which texts are most readily accessible in terms of language. To be honest, you will probably need a glossary to start with no matter which play you choose but reading the sonnets which are each quite short may help ease you in:

Sonnet 16

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand’ring bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me prov’d,

I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.

So, which play should you read first? That will depend on your own personal taste and which kinds of stories and characters appeal to you. Here is a quick guide.

If you like Game of Thrones…

Political intrigue, a high level of gore, sex and cruelty? Possibly with a little fantasy thrown in? Shakespeare was doing that long before George R.R. Martin.

Macbeth

Featuring the classic character arc of the good soldier seduced by the possibility of power (Macbeth) and the unscrupulous, scheming power behind the throne (Lady Macbeth). Shakespeare took the story from Holinshed’s Chronicles rather than historical sources so it is not meant to be historically accurate. It is a tale of ambition and falling from grace.

It has less subplots than some of Shakespeare’s other tragedies and is much shorter so it could be a good place to start if a really long read feels intimidating.

In terms of famous quotes, the Weird Sisters’ incantations are very well known (and even feature in the Harry Potter series):

ALL.  Double, double toil and trouble;
    Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

The Winter’s Tale

A wrongly accused wife, a peasant girl who turns out to be a princess, a tyrannical King and the most famous stage direction I can think of (Exit pursued by a bear), The Winter’s Tale in a way is a bit like Macbeth in reverse: the jealous and tyrannical King Leontes comes to feel remorse for his unfair treatment of his queen, Hermione, and their lost child comes to light after having been raised by a shepherd. There is also a bit of the supernatural with statues coming to life.

The play is one of Shakespeare’s later romances, in other words it is neither a tragedy nor a comedy but has elements of both. It’s not particularly long (for Shakespeare) and has a happy ending.

It’s possibly not one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays and perhaps the stage direction I mentioned earlier is its most famous quote, but it still uses language poetically:

“We were as twinn’d lambs that did frisk i’ the sun, And bleat the one at the other: what we changed Was innocence for innocence”.

Hamlet

Ok, so this is the big one. It’s also the most Game of Thrones… madness, murder, political skulduggery, spying, war, conquest, sex, suicide and incest. Amongst other things. You get all this with some of the most famous quotes from Shakespeare:

To be or not to be, that is the question…

Get thee to a nunnery!…

Alas, Poor Yorick…

Hamlet is right at the apex of the canon of English Literature so in a way you cannot claim to be well read without reading it at some point. Whether it’s a good place to start with Shakespeare is debatable. It’s familiar and many very famous actors have appeared in it (David Tennant, Lawrence Olivier, Patrick Stewart, Kenneth Branagh and Mel Gibson to name a few). For that reason it might be easy to follow as it’s very much in the reading public’s consciousness. On the other hand it is long (if it were performed from the First Folio verbatim it would last 8 hours, I was informed as an undergraduate) and its themes are very complex. I would recommend watching it first and reading it later. There are 3 notable movie versions directed by Lawrence Olivier, Franco Zeffirelli and Kenneth Branagh. The Royal Shakespeare Company’s version starring David Tennant as Hamlet and an absolutely stellar performance by Patrick Stewart as Claudius, his murdering uncle and new stepfather, are available online.

If You Like Ghosts or Grace and Frankie…

Ok, I name these shows because they are my personal favourite recent comedies but basically if you like comedy, don’t rule out Shakespeare’s wit.

I do desire we may be better strangers

— AS YOU LIKE IT, ACT 3 SCENE 2, LINE 254; ORLANDO TO JACQUES

Thou sodden-witted lord! thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows

— TROILUS AND CRESSIDA, ACT 2 SCENE 1, LINES 42-43; THERSITES TO AJAX

Maybe you don’t want to start your journey with Shakespeare with a heavy going tragedy. His lighter side is still decidedly clever and you can still show off at dinner parties if you have read As You Like It rather than Julius Caesar.

As You Like It

Cross dressing, mistaken identity and a hint of homoeroticism, with the famous ‘All the world’s a stage’ speech thrown in. You have to keep paying attention to this play!

Despite that, not everybody loves it and it is considered a ‘middling’ rather than a ‘great’ Shakespearian comedy by some, including George Bernard Shaw.

Again, it may be worth finding the play on YouTube before reading it because, as with all comedies, a lot rests in the timing and performance.

It’s fairly accessible read which contains some pithy insults and this famous speech:

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;

And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;

His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion;

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Much Ado About Nothing

Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson made a splash when they starred in the film version of this comedy back in the 90s (1993 to be precise). It’s got the feisty female lead that modern audiences love, a ‘will they, won’t they’ love story between a couple who are sceptical about love. The story begins with the public humiliation of an innocent woman, a less comedic aspect. Honour and justice are key themes even though the tale is mostly light hearted.

The balance between drama and comedy tips towards comedy but the characters are engaging and we as the audience tend to care what happens to them, so it’s not just a slapstick affair.

The language can be both pithy and witty and wax profound:

Tax not so bad a voice to slander music any more than once.

Friendship is constant in all other things

Save in the office and affairs of love.

If you like Disney…

If the fantastical and whimsical takes your fancy, Shakespeare has something to offer you as well.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Fairies. Lovers. Royalty. Magic woods and actors making fools of themselves. A romantic lead with the head of a donkey and multiple weddings at the end. What more could a Disney fan ask (except that it be put to music, and actually originally it was although we have lost the tunes now).

This play is defined as a comedy because it has a happy ending and it does have some funny moments, a lot of which revolve around Bottom (watch it to see what I mean).  It has the darker undercurrents of jealousy and seduction as well but all good fairytales have a subtext.

This was the first Shakespeare text I read. I was 10 at that time which leads me to believe it to be accessible for most people.

The most memorable quote is probably ‘the course of true love never did run smooth’ (as every Disney princess knows).

The language is poetic and evinces a sense of wonder, such as this little speech by Oberon, King of the Fairies, about his queen, Titania:

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night, 
Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight.
(Oberon, Act 2 Scene 1)

If you like Virgin River/ Twilight or other romantic guilty pleasures…

Ok, I’m just trying to think of something romantic. To be honest, Much Ado About Nothing probably scratches this itch but the play you might think of most is

Romeo and Juliet

Now, try not to get upset when I say this but Romeo and Juliet is not a true love story. Apologies to Taylor Swift but this is the story of a boy who has had strings of paramours  (such as fair Rosalind) and then has a monumental crush on a stranger he meets at party only this time the crush could get him killed, and it does. She is a smart mouth but actually quite innocent and their families are arch enemies. Their relationship becomes intense enough for them to marry and certain adults around them do encourage it (Friar Lawrence, most notably). The tragic ending is undoubtedly a testament to their love but in my view it’s a story of young love and teenage hormones gone badly wrong.

It contains some very famous lines, including:

[Romeo sees light coming from an upper window]

But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,

Who is already sick and pale with grief….

Juliet

O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?

Deny thy father and refuse thy name;

Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,

And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

‘Wherefore’ means ‘why’, by the way.

This is a fairly short and straightforward play classified as a tragedy and may be a simpler tragedy to start with than Hamlet or King Lear.

The Sonnets

These are some of the most famous love poems in history so if you are a helpless romantic, they are a good place to start and as I mentioned earlier these short chunks of text will get you used to the language of Shakespeare.

This one is possibly the most famous:

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:

   So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

   So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

I hope this has helped you decided where to start with your reading of Shakespeare. You can find all his work for free online via Project Gutenberg.

My Understanding Shakespeare course explains how to read the language of Shakespeare and covers the history and themes of his work and the life of the man himself.

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Peace, gentle friend, and I hope you will fall in love with the Bard.