The Comedies

Shakespeare's romantic comedies mostly date from the early period of his life. Light-hearted plays, mostly on themes relating to love, they feature stock theatrical devices such as mistaken identity, (e.g. in The Comedy of Errors) and disguise/cross-dressing (e.g. in The Two Gentlemen of Verona) - where the comedy was accentuated by the fact that women's parts were still acted by men or boys (and would be until after the Restoration in 1660). These plays, generally with extremely complicated plots, use situational comedy and farcical effects (as in The Taming of the Shrew) as well as wordplay and wit.

Shakespeare's later comedies, written after 1598, (e.g. Much Ado about Nothing, As You Like It, Twelfth Night) display a shift in tone to a greater seriousness. The rollicking heroes still remain (as for example Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Belch and Aguecheek in Twelfth Night), but, in keeping with the spirit of the times, there is a growing presence of meditation and melancholy, as well as romance. The treatment of themes such as the unreliability of love, and of illusion and self-deception pave the way for the great tragedies to come. In particular, the use of the clown or fool (Touchstone in As You Like It, Feste in Twelfth Night) and their bitter-sweet attitude to life looks forward to their use in King Lear and Antony and Cleopatra, where their seemingly childish words usually conceal a macabre wisdom which the saner characters in the plays fail to recognize.

Some of the plays are so weighty as to hardly seem comedies at all: for example, The Merchant of Venice, whose plot runs much deeper and treats more complex themes such as antisemitism and greed, as well as the love story between Portia and Antonio, or the rather dark atmosphere of Measure for Measure and its preoccupation with the themes of justice and mercy. Finally, A Midsummer Night's Dream, within the context of a comedy about love and marriage, raises questions regarding the nature of reality in general.

The Histories

Shakespeare began his career with a history play (Henry VI) and the last play attributed to him is also a history (Henry VIII), but most of this category of plays belong to the middle part of his career, between 1595 and 1600. In writing these Shakespeare drew on earlier chron­icles, often transforming historical events creatively to suit the political climate and tastes of the Eliza­bethan age and to produce topical plays dealing with themes of rebellion and kingship at a time when there was a very real fear that the existing order might be undermined by insurrection.

Shakespeare, like the other dra­matists of his time, was very favourably disposed towards the authority of the monarchy. The main examples of the genre (Richard II, Richard III, Henry IV, and Henry V) are a cycle setting out the story of the kings immediately preceding the Tudor dynasty. They combine a vision of kingship as being divinely instituted, with a strong sense of the need for a moral guide to guarantee order in a state, and they play on the strong patriotic and nationalistic sentiments of the day, highlighting the dangers of division within the realm, which lead to rebellion and usurpation; as well as the catastrophic results of weak governments and lack of authority. The cycle begins with the weak king, Richard II, continues with Henry IV, who as Bolingbroke usurps the throne, and proceeds through the interesting conflict with his debauched son, Hal, who is later to become the authoritative and heroic figure of King Henry V.

The evils of the Machiavellian figure, Richard III, whose defeat at Bosworth Field led to the establishment of the ruling Tudor dynasty are portrayed with consummate skill and his reputation has never been the same since Shakespeare's effective character assassination. One of the greatest of Shakespeare's creations is undoubtedly the comic character Falstaff, the 'man-mountain' whose interests are strictly limited to eating, drinking and womanizing, who appears in the two parts of Henry IV, and whose hilarious adventures often seem to dominate the genuine historical action of the plays. The so-called Roman plays (Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, J\M and Cleopatra), although not m belonging to the category histories, all show a preoccupation with the same themes of on rebellion and authority.