Shakespeare’s Plays
Most scholars agree that there exist 37 plays written by
Shakespeare. Traditionally, Shakespeare’s plays have been divided
into three groups: comedies, histories, and tragedies. All of the
works ofthe great playwright are written in four periods of his
literary career. Each o f these periods reflects a general phase o f
Shakespeare’s artistic development.
T he first period includes all the plays written in 1590-1594.
His com edies “The Comedy o f Errors”, “The Taming o f the
Shrew”, “The Two Gentlemen o f Verona”, the histories “Henry
VI” (Parts I, li, and Ilil), “Richard III”, “King John”, and the
tragedy “Titus Andronicus” were written during this period. They
belong to different genres, but they have much in common. The
plots o f these plays follow their sources more mechanically then
do the plots o f Shakespeare's later works. Besides, these plays
generally emphasize events more than the portrayal o f characters.
During
the second per iod (1595-1600)
Shakespeare brought
historical drama and Elizabethan romantic com edy to near
perfection. The com ed ies “A M idsum m er N igh t’s Dream”,
“L ove’s Labour’s Lost”, “ I he Merchant o f Venice”, “As You
Like It”, “Much Ado About Nothing”, “Twelfth Night”, “The
Merry Wives o f Windsor”, the tragedies “Romeo and Juliet”, “Julius
Caesar” and the histories “Richard II”, “Henry IV” (Parts 1 and
II), “ Henry V” were written at this period, and in them the great
playwright demonstrated his genius for weaving various dramatic
actions into a unified plot, showed his gift for characterization.
During
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