Shakespeare
Read this if you…
- want to read some of the very worst shakespeare
Skip this if you…
- haven't already read every other shakespeare play (they are better)
- aren't willing to go slow, read notes, look up analyses of famous passages (only way to "get" shakespeare)
- foolishly think shakespeare is overrated
The 
Take
Not much of a plot, language wasn’t that beautiful
Gallery
Depicted in Art
Queen Katharine stands before Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey at the Blackfriars divorce hearing, addressing the king from the floor of the court.
George Henry Harlow, 1817
Six white-robed angelic figures hover above the sleeping Katharine, holding a garland over her head as she dreams on her deathbed.
Henry Fuseli, 1781
Dying Katharine reclines in a chair as a circle of robed angels descends above her in a swirling vortex, garlands extended toward her brow.
William Blake, 1825
Anne Boleyn in conversation with an old serving woman, her face troubled as she contemplates the queen's fate she may soon inherit.
Marcus Stone, 1874
Wolsey sits slumped in his cardinal's robes after the king's discovery of his ambitions, attended by a single figure.
Richard Westall, 1795
Editions
Recommended Editions
#1Top Pick
Folger Shakespeare Library
2007
Folger's the readable one. Text on one page, notes on the facing page, written in plain English instead of textbook-speak. Catches every word and reference you'd otherwise Google, without breaking the scene to do it.
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Notable Quotes
Farewell! a long farewell, to all my greatness!
AcclaimPraised by 2 notable voices
- Samuel Johnson, critic & lexicographer, 1709–1784: "The genius of Shakespear comes in and goes out with Katherine."
- Harold Bloom, Yale literary critic, 1930–2019: A play that reads as a better dramatic poem than a stageworthy drama, and one that deserves rather more aesthetic esteem than it has generally been accorded.
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