http://philipschaefer.com/2009/09/03/what-shakespeare-play-would-you-assign/ There’s a simple little blog post with a deeper question.  On the subject of “What play would you assign?” the two friends discuss the understanding of revenge – one recommends Hamlet, the other suggests The Tempest.  (The interpretation of how best to handle your revenge, between those two plays alone, could fill quite a few lectures…) But let me ask the bigger question – how many of Shakespeare’s plays, and to what extent, have revenge at their core?  Is what Edmund does, revenge?  How about Iago to Othello (if we assume, as the text hints at, that Iago does in fact have some previous slights from Othello, and he’s not just a sociopath).   What about Romeo killing Tybalt?  Sure it’s a brief flash of a moment inside the play, but it’s a pretty pivotal moment.  How about Merchant of Venice? I realize that there are some “revenge plays” where that’s the overall point of the story.  I’m just curious, if you tried, whether you could find some level of revenge in just about all the plays, short of the silliest comedies.  How about Dream?  Is Oberon’s spell cast over Titania a form of revenge for the way she’s been treating him?