Here you go. I'll probably continue to fiddle with it:
44. Sir John Falstaff/Henry IV parts I and II and Henry V (Shakespeare)
45. King Lear/King Lear (Shakespeare)
46. Hamlet/Hamlet (Shakespeare)
47. Othello/Othello (Shakespeare)
48. Lady Macbeth/Macbeth (Shakespeare)
Great list, Mike. A nice complement to Tom's...you know, for
the eggheads. Although if there were room for one more character from Shakespeare I'd have loved it if you included Edmund the Bastard from King Lear. Now there's a guy with a gripe:
Act I scene 2
Edmund:
"Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law
My services are bound. Wherefore should I
Stand in the plague of custom, and permit
The curiosity of nations to deprive me,
For that I am some twelve or fourteen moon-shines
Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base?
When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as generous, and my shape as true,
As honest madam's issue? Why brand they us
With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?
Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take
More composition and fierce quality
Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,
Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops,
Got 'tween asleep and wake? Well, then,
Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land:
Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund
As to the legitimate: fine word,--legitimate!
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,
And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
Shall top the legitimate. I grow; I prosper:
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!"