Shakespeare: Tragedies, Comedies, Histories and Sonnets
William Shakespeare (1564–1616), born in Stratford-upon-Avon, is universally regarded as the greatest playwright in English. Across roughly 24 years he wrote about 37 plays (the precise count depends on attributions), 154 sonnets, and two long narrative poems, Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594).
The 1623 collected edition of Shakespeare's plays compiled by John Heminges and Henry Condell, fellow members of the King's Men, after Shakespeare's death. It contains 36 plays — 18 of them appearing in print for the first time. Without it, Macbeth, The Tempest, Twelfth Night and others might have been lost.
Career stages
Conventionally divided into four phases:
- Early period (1589–1594) — apprenticeship; Henry VI, Titus Andronicus, Comedy of Errors.
- Balanced period (1595–1600) — romantic comedies and history plays; Romeo and Juliet, Henry V, Much Ado, Julius Caesar.
- Great tragedies (1600–1608) — Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth; problem plays.
- Romances / Late plays (1608–1613) — The Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, The Tempest.
Tragedies (10–11 plays)
| Play | Approx. year | Setting | Tragic hero / heroine |
|---|---|---|---|
| Romeo and Juliet | 1595 | Verona | Star-crossed lovers |
| Julius Caesar | 1599 | Ancient Rome | Brutus / Caesar |
| Hamlet | 1600–01 | Elsinore, Denmark | Prince Hamlet |
| Othello | 1603–04 | Venice / Cyprus | Othello, Moor of Venice |
| King Lear | 1605 | Ancient Britain | Lear, king of Britain |
| Macbeth | 1606 | Scotland | Macbeth, Thane of Glamis |
| Antony and Cleopatra | 1607 | Rome / Egypt | Mark Antony, Cleopatra |
| Coriolanus | 1608 | Republican Rome | Caius Martius Coriolanus |
Common features: a noble protagonist with a fatal flaw (hamartia), supernatural elements, soliloquies, complex moral ambiguity.
Iconic quotations
"To be, or not to be: that is the question." — Hamlet, Act III.i.
"Out, damned spot! out, I say!" — Lady Macbeth, Macbeth, Act V.i.
"Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!" — Lear in the storm, King Lear, III.ii.
Comedies (16–17 plays)
| Type | Plays |
|---|---|
| Romantic comedies | A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595); Much Ado About Nothing (1598); As You Like It (1599); Twelfth Night (1601); The Merchant of Venice (1597) |
| Comedies of mistaken identity | The Comedy of Errors (1592); The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1590) |
| Problem plays (dark comedies) | Measure for Measure (1604); All's Well That Ends Well (1604); Troilus and Cressida (1602) |
| Late romances | The Winter's Tale (1610); Cymbeline (1610); The Tempest (1611) |
Hallmarks: cross-dressing heroines, ridiculous misunderstandings, witty wordplay, harmonious endings — usually in marriage.
"All the world's a stage, / And all the men and women merely players." — As You Like It, II.vii.
Histories (10 plays)
Two tetralogies plus stand-alones:
- First tetralogy: Henry VI (Parts 1, 2, 3); Richard III.
- Second tetralogy: Richard II; Henry IV (Parts 1, 2); Henry V.
- Stand-alones: King John; Henry VIII (collaboration with John Fletcher).
These plays dramatise English dynastic conflict from the Hundred Years' War to the Tudor settlement. Henry V (1599) is the patriotic peak.
"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers" — Henry V, Henry V, IV.iii.
Sonnets
154 sonnets, published in 1609 by Thomas Thorpe. Form: English / Shakespearean sonnet — 3 quatrains + a final rhyming couplet, in iambic pentameter, rhyming abab cdcd efef gg.
- Sonnets 1–126 addressed to a Fair Youth.
- Sonnets 127–152 addressed to the Dark Lady.
- Sonnets 153–154 are mythological coda.
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate." — Sonnet 18.
"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun." — Sonnet 130.
- Shakespeare wrote ~37 plays and 154 sonnets.
- The First Folio (1623) preserved his canon.
- Globe Theatre opened in 1599 on the south bank of the Thames; burned down in 1613 during Henry VIII.
- The "Big Four" tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth.
- Shakespeare's verse is mostly blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter) with prose for lower-class characters and comic moments.
Stagecraft and theatre
- Open-air Globe Theatre (1599) — 3,000 spectators; "groundlings" stood in the yard.
- All-male cast — female roles played by boys.
- Minimal scenery; words carried imagined setting (the "wooden O" of Henry V's prologue).
- Use of soliloquy, aside, song, masque, dumbshow.
Themes and techniques
Major themes:
- Power, kingship and legitimacy — histories and tragedies.
- Appearance vs reality — Macbeth ("fair is foul"), Hamlet, King Lear.
- Love and jealousy — Othello, Romeo and Juliet.
- Order and chaos / the great chain of being.
- Madness — Hamlet, Lear, Ophelia.
- Fate and free will.
- Gender and disguise — Twelfth Night, As You Like It.
Techniques: iambic pentameter, soliloquy, dramatic irony, double-plot structure (Lear-Edmund parallel), comic relief in tragedy (Porter scene in Macbeth).
Sources and influences
- Plutarch's Lives — Roman plays.
- Holinshed's Chronicles — history plays and Macbeth, Lear.
- Ovid — mythology.
- Italian novelle — Romeo and Juliet, Othello.
Legacy
Shakespeare's influence on subsequent literature, drama, language and criticism is immeasurable. Phrases coined or popularised by him: "break the ice", "heart of gold", "wild goose chase", "all's well that ends well".
Memorise one defining quotation per major play and one ironclad date — Hamlet (1600–01), Macbeth (1606), The Tempest (1611). Cite the First Folio (1623) and the Globe (1599) in any general Shakespeare answer. Examiners reward precise textual reference over generic praise.
Critical receptions
- Ben Jonson (1623, First Folio): "not of an age, but for all time".
- John Dryden (1668): praises Shakespeare for "the largest and most comprehensive soul".
- Samuel Johnson (1765): celebrated his mirror of "general nature".
- Coleridge (1818): articulated organic unity and the multi-consciousness of Hamlet.
- A. C. Bradley (Shakespearean Tragedy, 1904) — character-centred criticism of the four major tragedies.
- Stephen Greenblatt — New Historicism; Will in the World (2004).