Here's a party game you might like to try. Rank Shakespeare's plays in order of importance/interest/artistic success.
I can't do it in detail but to start off, here are my rankings as Top, Middle, Bottom and Beneath Bottom. Any comments? Have I missed any out?
Top Third
Anthony and Cleopatra
Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, Lear,
Coriolanus
Henry IV Parts 1 & 2
Tempest, Winter’s Tale, Midsummer Night’s Dream
Twelfth Night
As You Like It
Middle Third
Richard II & III
Henry V
Measure for Measure, Much Ado About Nothing, All Well’s That Ends Well
Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar
Troilus and Cressida
Bottom Third
Henry VI Parts 1,2 & 3
Henry VIII
King John
Cymbeline, Pericles,. Timon of Athens
Taming of the Shrew, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Comedy of Errors, Merry Wives of Windsor
Rock Bottom, although I haven’t read them recently
Two Gentlemen of Verona, Titus Andronicus