Shakespearean comedy

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Traditionally, the plays of William Shakespeare have been grouped into three categories: tragedies, comedies, and histories. Some critics have argued for a fourth category, the romance. "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 marriage for all the unmarried characters, and a tone and style that is more lighthearted than Shakespeare's other plays.

Patterns in the comedies include movement to a "green world," both internal and external conflicts, and a tension between Apollonian and Dionysian values.

Shakespearean comedies also tend to have

A struggle of young lovers to overcome difficulty that is often presented by elders
Separation and unification
Mistaken identities
A clever servant
Heightened tensions, often within a family
Multiple, intertwining plots
Frequent use of puns

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 or tragicomedies. 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 confound expectations.

[edit] List of Shakespearean comedies

[edit] Comedy vs. Late Romance

Some scholars of Shakespeare break the category of "Comedies" into "Comedies" and "Romances." The plays included in the latter category would be Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, Pericles Prince of Tyre, and The Tempest. See Shakespeare's Late Romances.

	The complete works of William Shakespeare
Tragedies:	Romeo and Juliet \| Macbeth \| King Lear \| Hamlet \| Othello \| Titus Andronicus \| Julius Caesar \| Antony and Cleopatra \| Coriolanus \| Troilus and Cressida \| Timon of Athens
Comedies:	A Midsummer Night's Dream \| All's Well That Ends Well \| As You Like It \| Cymbeline \| Love's Labour's Lost \| Measure for Measure \| The Merchant of Venice \| The Merry Wives of Windsor \| Much Ado About Nothing \| Pericles, Prince of Tyre \| Taming of the Shrew \| The Comedy of Errors \| The Tempest \| Twelfth Night, or What You Will \| The Two Gentlemen of Verona \| The Two Noble Kinsmen \| The Winter's Tale
Histories:	King John \| Richard II \| Henry IV, Part 1 \| Henry IV, Part 2 \| Henry V \| Henry VI, part 1 \| Henry VI, part 2 \| Henry VI, part 3 \| Richard III \| Henry VIII
Poems and Sonnets:	Sonnets \| Venus and Adonis \| The Rape of Lucrece \| The Passionate Pilgrim \| The Phoenix and the Turtle \| A Lover's Complaint
Apocrypha and Lost Plays	Edward III \| Sir Thomas More \| Cardenio (lost) \| Love's Labour's Won (lost) \| The Birth of Merlin \| Locrine \| The London Prodigal \| The Puritan \| The Second Maiden's Tragedy \| Richard II, Part I: Thomas of Woodstock \| Sir John Oldcastle \| Thomas Lord Cromwell \| A Yorkshire Tragedy \| Fair Em \| Mucedorus \| The Merry Devil of Edmonton \| Arden of Faversham \| Edmund Ironside
See also:	Shakespeare on screen \| Titles based on Shakespeare \| Characters \| Problem Plays \| Ghost characters \| Reputation \| New Words \| Influence on English Language \| Authorship Question \| Chronology of Shakespeare plays \| Chronology of Shakespeare's Plays - Oxfordian