Shakespeare's greatness needs little introduction. Of the western cannon he is unequaled, outmatching even the likes of Vigil, Milton, Dante and the contemporaries of his time for sheer creative imagination and ease of language. His poetic creationism is only perhaps equaled by that of Homer, equaled, but not bettered. There is little doubt that of all of Shakespeare's genius his power to instill and create character was the very best of all. With 37 plays to choose from, many of them classed as masterpieces, which are the very best of the best?
Of the 37 plays critics (such as Harold Bloom) generally agree that about 18 of them show Shakespeare at the height of his genius, these are: The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer-Nights Dream, The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, The Winter's Tale, Henry the Fourth parts 1 and 2, Henry the Fifth, Richard the Third, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, Cymbeline and Anthony and Cleopatra.
Of course this is not a solid list as others would argue for the inclusion of the likes of Troilus and Cressida, Loves Labour's Lost or The Comedy of Errors. There will always be some critics who disagree upon the finer points, but generally speaking we can consider at least 17 or 18 of Shakespeare's plays truly great. This is not including his sonnets that are all but unequalled in the English language and other poems such as Venus and Adonis and The Phoenix and the Turtle which are also strong works of literature.
So of the 18 or so works which ones can be truly considered the best plays of Shakespeare?
Well, amongst the very best literary critics there is little doubt about which of the above are his very best. What is known as Shakespeare's four great tragedies which are: Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth and Othello, probably in that order of greatness. At least Hamlet is generally considered to be his most powerful work, with Macbeth and Lear a close second.
Of the comedies there is less a lesser clear cut definition of what is the best, take your pick from likes of The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer-Nights Dream, Twelfth Night, The Winter's Tale and As You Like It.
Of his histories the creation of comic genius Falstaff in Henry the fourth part 1 generally takes this play above the likes of Richard the Third and Henry the Fifth though both of these could have a case for best history play.
Overall, Hamlet is probably Shakespeare's finest creation and therefore probably literature's finest creation, certainly in the form of the play. You may wonder why the likes of Macbeth and Hamlet are such highly rated plays. Again Harold Bloom perhaps goes further than any other critic of Shakespeare when he says that Shakespeare created the human with the invention of these two characters. That humanity was created when Shakespeare penned these and Falstaff and a host of other characters. This is quite a claim for anyone to make, but he would argue that there is a little bit of the Macbeth and Hamlet in all of us, and at the same time they remain powerfully elusive and all too human for comfort.