The Shakespeare Project.

I have long loved the Bard. I first experienced Shakespeare's work as a freshman in high school reading Romeo and Juliet. And while I loved the lush language and characters, I hated the storyline. My English teacher, aware of my hatred for the love-obsessed teenagers, encouraged me not to give up on the Bard, but to read more of his work. Eventually, I did.

I took a Shakespeare class later on in high school, as well as reading some of the sonnets on my own. In college, I took another Shakespeare class, where I learned more about the life of the man, the stories behind the sonnets, and read a few of his lesser-known plays. So when it came time to craft my list of initial 250 classics, quite a few Shakespeare titles happened to be repeats.

I ended up finishing all of the plays on that 250 list during my Shakespeare Reading Month that I hosted in January 2012. I also reached out and wrote a few posts that many have found helpful:

• Tips for Reading Shakespeare
• Books About Shakespeare
• Shakespeare Trivia
• Shakespeare Movie Adaptations

 Since then, I haven't had the opportunity to continue reading the Bard's works, so I'd like to make it a point to complete reading his works, and doing some more in-depth reading about the life of the man. Like my Willa Cather project, I want to read my way through his works and blog about the process. However, I've already made a huge dent in his complete works, so I will be using old blog entries for those plays. You can monitor my progress below.

Poetry:

• The Sonnets
• A Lover's Complaint
• The Rape of Lucrece
• Venus and Adonis
• Funeral Elegy

 Comedy:

• All's Well That Ends Well
• As You Like It: Post 1/19/12
• The Comedy of Errors
• Cymbeline
• Love's Labours Lost
• Measure for Measure
• The Merry Wives of Windsor
• The Merchant of Venice: Post 2/4/12
• A Midsummer Night's Dream: Post 2/7/12
• Much Ado About Nothing: Post 10/4/09
  
• Pericles, Prince of Tyre
• The Taming of the Shrew
• The Tempest: Post 8/31/10
• Troilus and Cressida
• Twelfth Night: Post 1/20/12
• The Two Gentlemen of Verona
• The Winter's Tale: Post 2/9/10

History:

• Henry IV Part 1: Post 2/2/12
• Henry IV Part 2: Post 2/2/12
  
• Henry V
• Henry VI Part 1
• Henry VI Part 2
• Henry VI Part 3
• Henry VIII
• King John
• Richard II
• Richard III: Post 1/28/12     

Tragedy:

• Antony and Cleopatra: Post 1/18/12
• Coriolanus
• Hamlet: Post 1/30/12
• Julius Caesar: Post 11/8/11
• King Lear: Post 1/31/12
• Macbeth: Post 4/27/10
• Othello: Post 2/6/12
• Romeo and Juliet: Post 2/10/11
• Timon of Athens
• Titus Adronicus