Characteristics of Shakespeare's Comedies

We are continuing our unit on Shakespeare by watching several of his plays.  Some of our discussions have surrounded the characteristics of his comedies, histories, and tragedies.  Here are the characteristics of his comedies:

Comedy through language Play on words, metaphors, etc.

Love and Marriage are central themes in the comedies.  Someone is always falling in love with someone else, and there tend to be a lot of marriages.

Mistaken Identities The plot of most of Shakespeare's comedies surround mistaken identities.

The 18 plays generally classified as comedy are as follows:


1.All's Well That Ends Well
2.As You Like It
3.The Comedy of Errors
4.Cymbeline
5.Love's Labour’s Lost
6.Measure for Measure
7.The Merry Wives of Windsor
8.The Merchant of Venice
9.A Midsummer Night's Dream
10.Much Ado About Nothing
11.Pericles, Prince of Tyre
12.The Taming of the Shrew
13.The Tempest
14.Troilus and Cressida
15.Twelfth Night
16.Two Gentlemen of Verona
17.The Two Noble Kinsmen
18.The Winter's Tale


There will be more posts coming about Shakespeare's tragedies and histories.