Shakespearean comedy

In the First Folio, the plays of William Shakespeare were grouped into three categories: comedies, histories, and tragedies.

"Comedy", in its Elizabethan usage, had a very different meaning from modern comedy. A Shakespearean comedy is one that has a happy ending, usually involving marriages between the unmarried characters, and a tone and style that is more light-hearted than Shakespeare's other plays. Patterns in the comedies include movement to a "green world",^[1] both internal and external conflicts, and a tension between Apollonian and Dionysian values. Shakespearean comedies tend to also include:

• A greater emphasis on situations than characters (this numbs the audience's connection to the characters, so that when characters experience misfortune, the audience still finds it laughable)
• A struggle of young lovers to overcome difficulty, often presented by elders
• Separation and re-unification
• Deception among characters (especially mistaken identity)
• A clever servant
• Tension between characters, often within a family
• Multiple, intertwining plots
• Use of all styles of comedy (slapstick, puns, dry humour, earthy humour, witty banter, practical jokes)
• Pastoral element (courtly people living an idealized, rural life), originally an element of Pastoral Romance, exploited by Shakespeare for his comic plots and often parodied therein for humorous effects
• Happy Ending, though this is a given, since by definition, anything without a happy ending can't be a comedy

Several of Shakespeare's comedies, such as Measure for Measure and All's Well That Ends Well, have an unusual tone with a difficult mix of humour and tragedy which has led them to be classified as problem plays. It is not clear whether the uneven nature of these dramas is due to an imperfect understanding of Elizabethan humour and society, a fault on Shakespeare's part, or a deliberate attempt by him to blend styles and subvert the audience's expectations. By the end of Shakespeare's life, he had written seventeen comedies.

List of comedies by William Shakespeare

The plays are here according to the order in which they are given in the First Folio of 1623. Plays marked with an asterisk (*) are now commonly referred to as the 'romances'. Plays marked with two asterisks (**) are sometimes referred to as the 'problem plays'.

• The Tempest*
• The Two Gentlemen of Verona
• The Merry Wives of Windsor
• Measure for Measure**
• The Comedy of Errors
• Much Ado About Nothing
• Love's Labour's Lost
• A Midsummer Night's Dream
• The Merchant of Venice**
• As You Like It
• The Taming of the Shrew
• All's Well That Ends Well**
• Twelfth Night
• The Winter's Tale*
• Pericles, Prince of Tyre* (not included in the First Folio)
• The Two Noble Kinsmen* (not included in the First Folio)

References