Lecture 4 Literature of the 16th century. The Renaissance

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, 

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histories, and tragedies. All of the works of the great playwright are written in four 
periods of his literary career. Each of these periods reflects a general phase of 
Shakespeare's artistic development. 
The first period includes all the plays written in 1590-1594. His comedies "The 
Comedy of Errors", "The Taming of the Shrew", "The Two Gentlemen of Verona", 
the histories "Henry VI" (Parts I, II, and III), "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 of these plays follow their sources 
more mechanically then do the plots of Shakespeare's later works. Besides, these 
plays generally emphasize events more than the portrayal of characters. 
During the second period (1595-1600) Shakespeare brought historical drama and 
Elizabethan romantic comedy to near perfection. The comedies "A Midsummer 
Night's Dream", "Love's Labour's Lost", "The Merchant of Venice", "As You Like 
It", "Much Ado About Nothing", "Twelfth Night", "The Merry Wives of Windsor", 
the tragedies "Romeo and Juliet", "Julius Caesar" and the histories "Richard II", 
"Henry IV" (Parts I 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 the third period (1601-1608) Shakespeare wrote his great tragedies 
("Hamlet", "Troilus and Cressida", "Othello", 'King Lear", "Macbeth", "Timon of 
Athens", "Anthony and Cleopatra", "Coriolanus"), which made him truly immortal. 
Every play of this period, except for "Pericles", shows Shakespeare's awareness of 
the tragic side of life. Even the two comedies of the period "All's Well That Ends 
Well" and "Measure for Measure" are more disturbing than amusing. That is why 
they are often called "problem" comedies or "bitter" comedies. "Pericles" represents 
Shakespeare's first romance - a drama, which is generally serious in tone but with a 
happy ending. 
Shakespeare's sonnets were also written during the third period of his literary 
career.