What sort of plays were written by Shakespeare?

Answer 1

When the first "Complete Works" of Shakespeare was published, the plays were divided into comedies, tragedies and histories. But these divisions do not necessarily tell us much about exactly what goes on in the plays. What is more, some of the decisions as to which plays fall into which categories can appear to be arbitrary.

A lot of plays are basically about politics: the three parts of Henry VI, Henry VIII, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Richard II, Henry V and Macbeth. These plays frequently chronicle someone who seizes power illegitimately but then is unable to hold it (this is also a theme in Hamlet).

But Antony and Cleopatra is also about love and the struggle between love and politics is its main theme. Love and the obstacles it tries to overcome is a theme in many plays, especially the comedies where the obstacles are generally successfully overcome and the lovers end up marrying. But not always. In Love's Labour's Lost, the lovers are on the point of setting the day when a further obstacle arises, postponing their plans. In Troilus and Cressida, Cressida is basically sold to the Greeks, and the play focuses on how she and Troilus deal with this permanent rupture between them. A similar problem in Romeo and Juliet results in drastic and tragic action, as does the romance in Othello.

Some plays have to do with characters and how they change. The two Henry IV plays are all about Prince Hal (the future Henry V) and how he grows up. Macbeth deals with the disintegration of character under the pressure of guilt. Timon of Athens is about a person at one extreme being driven to the other extreme. The Winter's Tale is a long and painful journey of discovery for Leontes, the main character.

Some of the comedies are not about love. The Comedy of Errors (and to a certain extent Twelfth Night) is about mistaken identity. The Merry Wives of Windsor is about a conman being outconned by his victims (a favourite theme of Shakespeare's contemporary Ben Jonson). Slapstick and dirty jokes abound.

The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream are quite fantastic, involving fairies, spirits and magicians as main characters. The Merry Wives and The Taming of the Shrew are at the other extreme, being tales of ordinary middle-class people. The fairy-tale feel to the late plays The Tempest, The Winter's Tale, Cymbeline and Pericles have caused some authers to group them and call them Romances. In these plays things get pretty bad before they get better, but in the end they do get better.

Measure for Measure is a dark play, dealing with abuses of power by officials, sexual licentiousness and prudishness, and the tricky question of whether a "crackdown" by law enforcement really does any good at all. It is one of several dark and ambiguous plays called problem plays which include All's Well That Ends Well and Troilus and Cressida. In these plays, there is a certain uneasiness about the way the plays end.

Oh, and we mustn't forget the blood-and-guts slasher horror play Titus Andronicus.

Basically, Shakespeare's plays cover a lot of ground. Just about everybody should be able to find one or two of them which suit their taste.