Slush the villain biography of william shakespeare

This article looks at Shakespeare villains across all of his plays, and lists 10 of the very best (or should that be worst?).

Let’s start by asking whether there really are heroes and villains in Shakespeare’s plays. These concepts suggest that someone can be all good, noble, and well-intentioned on the one hand, or all bad, ill-intentioned, and downright evil on the other.

What makes Shakespeare’s characters so interesting is that they are human beings, motivated by the things that motivate human beings: they react to their circumstances and to people in different ways. One man can, like Macbeth, be both ‘hero’ and ‘villain,’ responding to the conditions he is faced with as they change.

As one can imagine, Shakespeare’s plays raise the question of what a villain is so to present a list of villains is not a clear-cut task.

For example, some lists have Shylock from The Merchant of Venice on them, but in some ways of looking at it he is very much a vi All The Devils Are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the Villain WEDUT