Shakespearean comedies
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Shakespearean comedies are one of the three (sometimes four) genres of plays by William Shakespeare. Traditionally, his works have been grouped into: tragedies, comedies, and histories, with some scholars adding a fourth category, romances.
"Comedy" in its medieval 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 more lighthearted style and tone.
Shakespearean comedies also tend to have:
- A struggle of young lovers to overcome difficulty that is often presented by elders
- Seperation and Unification
- Mistaken Identities
- Male Friendship
- A Clever Servant
- Heightened Tensions, often within a family
- Multiple Plots
Several of Shakespeare's comedies, such as Measure for Measure, All's Well That Ends Well and The Merchant of Venice, 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 confound expectations.
List of Shakespearean comedies:
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- All's Well That Ends Well
- As You Like It
- Cardenio (lost)
- The Comedy of Errors
- Cymbeline
- Love's Labour's Lost
- Love's Labour's Won (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 Tempest
- Twelfth Night
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- The Winter's Tale
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.