My revised suggestion for a Shakespeare reading order

[aaronthemad]

As you no doubt recall, enraptured reader of my every LiveJournal post, I've been reading all of Shakespeare's plays in mostly chronological order. That is, in the order in which he wrote them, according to the Wikipedia article Chronology of William Shakespeare's plays. The one big exception to this is the history plays, which I'm reading in chronological order in between "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "The Merchant of Venice" (a spot I somewhat arbitrarily chose, because it's where "The Life and Death of King John" fits into the chronology, and that's the first of the history plays). The reason for this was so that I could understand the historical sweep of events in the histories, since they generally follow, one after the other.

I've now nearly reached the end of the 11 history plays, with only "Richard III" and "Henry VIII" left. And looking back, if I had it to do over again I think I may have done things differently with regards to the histories.

The 11 history plays, in chronological order, are:

Henry VI part 2
Henry VI part 3
Henry VI part 1 (yes, Wikipedia says the scholarly consensus is this was written last as a kind of prequel)
Richard III
Edward III (although despite its inclusion in the chronology article, this is Shakespeare apocrypha)
Richard II
King John
Henry IV part 1
Henry IV part 2
Henry V
Henry VIII

The thing is, these plays mainly fall into two tetralogies about the House of Lancaster usurping the English throne, and the Wars of the Roses in which the House of York fought to reclaim it. There's a "Henry V" tetralogy comprised of Richard II, Henry IV.1, Henry IV.2, and Henry V; and a "Wars of the Roses" tetralogy composed of Henry VI.1, Henry VI.2, Henry VI.3, and Richard III. Of the other three plays, King John takes place 200 years earlier and pretty much stands alone; Edward III takes place in the time of Richard II's grandfather (the houses of York and Lancaster were descendants of two of his many sons); and Henry VIII takes place after the dust has settled and is, from what I hear, mostly about praising Queen Elizabeth and her father.

If you take a look at that chronological list of the histories, you'll see that it's basically the "Wars of the Roses" tetralogy in order (except for Henry VI part 1 coming after part 3), then the Edward III prequel play, then the Henry V tetralogy, and then the Henry VIII follow-up. So, it's basically a Star Wars sort of situation, with the "Henry V" tetralogy essentially a prequel series to the Wars of the Roses tetralogy.

Looking back, I think I probably would have done just fine to have done the Wars of the Roses tetralogy first. It even has an extended scene in which Richard the Duke of York discovers and explains that Henry VI is not the legitimate heir to the throne according to the rules of primogeniture, which seemed very redundant after reading Richard II, but would make a lot of sense if you read this play first. And also looking back, I can see how, in tone and writing style, the earlier-written plays match the other ones Shakespeare was writing around the same time. Henry VI part 3 is very bloody and scheming, a lot like Titus Andronicus.

So, my revised suggested Shakespeare reading order to someone just starting out, would be to stick with the written order with only a few changes. First, I'd put the three Henry VI plays in 1-2-3 order. Next, I'd move Edward III from immediately after Richard III to immediately before Richard II. (I'd also consider it optional, but it was actually pretty helpful to understand how respected Richard II's father, Edward the Black Prince, was, and by contrast then how weak and petty Richard II is). I'd also put the Merry Wives of Windsor after Henry IV part 2, instead of between parts 1 and 2, because it's got Falstaff, and Henry IV part 2 promises at the end that you'll see the return of Falstaff in another play, and it'd be disappointing not to get that.

So this would be the new suggested order altogehter:

1. The Two Gentlemen of Verona
2. The Taming of the Shrew
3. Henry VI part 1
4. Henry VI part 2
5. Henry VI part 3
6. Titus Andronicus
7. Richard III
8. The Comedy of Errors
9. Love's Labour's Lost
10. Edward III
11. Richard II
12. Romeo and Juliet
13. A Midsummer Night's Dream
14. The Life and Death of King John
15. The Merchant of Venice
16. Henry IV, Part 1
17. Henry IV, Part 2
18. The Merry Wives of Windsor
19. Henry V
20. Much Ado About Nothing
21. Julius Caesar
22. As You Like It
23. Hamlet
24. Twelfth Night
25. Troilus and Cressida
26. Measure for Measure
27. Othello
28. King Lear
29. Timon of Athens
30. Macbeth
31. Antony and Cleopatra
32. All's Well that Ends Well
33. Pericles, Prince of Tyre
34. Coriolanus
35. The Winter's Tale
36. Cymbeline
37. The Tempest
38. Cardenio
39. Henry VIII,
40. The Two Noble Kinsmen

My only qualm about doing it this way, is that I thought Henry VI parts 1 and 2 were kind of a drag, being long, slow, and complicated. So, it may be challenging to hit those so early on in the reading order. On the other hand, Henry VI part 3 was my favorite of all the histories so far, so it would have been great to get to that earlier on.