Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 37 of 37:

An odd end to this reading project: #Pericles, a flawed work not all written by the Bard...the plot is incoherent, the tone wildly inconsistent, but with the sea journeys & the poignant finale of a family healed, it breathes with magic

Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 36 of 37:

#Cymbeline is a dark horse favorite...a weird epic of banished lovers, scheming royals, ancient wars, pastoral comedy, family reunion, supernatural grace...one of his last plays, the Bard revisits his whole career here in giddy fashion

Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 35 of 37:

#AntonyAndCleopatra is romantic melodrama on a global scale...the Roman leader and the Queen of Egypt are hedonistic, passionate for each other, even in death...proof that messy love is more inspiring than the cold sober might of Caesar

Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 34 of 37:

#Othello leaves me ambivalent: In this searing tragedy, a vile villain in a racist society destroys a loving mixed-race marriage, with fatal results...but the Bard makes Othello too easily manipulated, or is the pressure just too much?

Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 33 of 37:

#KingLear is bleak: An elderly king splits his realm among the daughters claiming to love him the most, then loses his home & sanity...the pain of aging is portrayed with such poignant wisdom & beauty, it's the Bard's most haunting play

Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 32 of 37:

#Hamlet is the most famous play in the English language and it earns its superstardom...very long, it's a complex serpentine revenge story with a multitude of vivid characters, glorious poetry & a vigorous mix of calamity, humor, mayhem

Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 31 of 37:

#Macbeth is magnificently evil and brutal, with witches and prophecies, murders and ghosts, as the fate of the Scottish throne hangs in the balance...a tight plot, legendary soliloquys, it's convincingly spooky, one of my favorite plays

Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 30 of 37:

#JuliusCaesar is not about this would-be emperor, he merely shows up to be assassinated...instead, the tragedy is Brutus, a good man who merely aims to thwart tyranny, but instead destroys his life by joining foul-tempered conspirators

Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 29 of 37:

#TimonOfAthens is a forgettable and bloodless play with no family strife, no romance, and (almost) no women. Timon gives money to false friends who then reject him when he goes broke. Then he dies bitter and alone in the woods. The end.

Here's #MyShakespeareWinter part 28 of 37:

#RomeoAndJuliet has some of the most timeless romantic poetry in English, and as a teen, I identified with the giddy doomed young lovers...but now older, I see the tragedy is a society where a feud between families causes pointless loss