Early comedies (1593-96):The Comedy of ErrorsThe Taming of the ShrewTwo Gentlemen of VeronaLove’s Labour’s LostA Midsummer Night’s Dream• Their language is witty skillfully rhetorical and makes use of refined imagery•Rhyme alternates with blank verse•A mixture of romantic and farcical elements

SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS

Mature Comedies (1596-1600):The Merchant of VeniceMuch Ado About NothingAs You Like ItTwelth NightThe Merry Wives of Windsor•They are called ‘romantic’ because of their predominantlove theme but they also strike sad notes

SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS

Problem plays (1600-1604):All’s Well That Ends WellMeasure for MeasureTroilus and Cressida• They follow the structure of comedy but theypresent characters involved in serious moral conflicts of difficult solution•A pessimistic outlook of life

SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS

Romances (1607-1612):PericlesCymberlineThe Winter’s TaleThe Tempest•The unreality of the story•Romantic love•The appearance and intervention of supernatural beings•Conclusion with peace, harmony and reconciliation

SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS

•He exploited brilliantly the stage-craft, the acting and the public taste of his days•A unique ability to render experience in poeticlanguage and an intuitive understanding of human psychology•The insight with which he presents states of mind andcomplexities of attitude•His ability to create living worlds of people

SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS

•Comic plots usually start with an initial calamity which presents a challenge.•The protagonists meet the challenge with confidence and turn it to their own advantage. As a consequence of apparent misfortune the hero and heroine of comedy find love when wrongs are redressed. •Storylines often require heroines to disguise themselves as men•The conventional end of comedy includes a double or triple wedding.

SHAKESPEARE’S COMEDIES

•Its main sources are Latin authors as Plautus and Ovid, Italian tales and plays and non-dramatic popular prose-romances of Medieval English tradition. •Lively and witty heroines•The delicate and happy treatment of love•The undertones of melancholy or prevented disaster•The element of fairy tale or folklore•An emerging world of moral and psychological realism

SHAKESPEARE’S COMEDIES

THE TEMPEST

•A new kind of drama of great complexity and originality•Involvement of natural and supernatural worlds•Prospero, the enigmatic central figure has derived his power from books•A growing feeling of confidence in the progress of human knowledge during Renaissance •Prospero is the generous man who restores harmony through forgiveness rather than vengeance

THE TEMPEST

•The nature of theatre as transitory illusion and as metaphor of life•Appearance versus reality•Order versus disorder•Purification•A magical play, full of grave beauty and rich poetry, a playout of this world in which virtue has all the power and Innocence meets its appropriate destiny.

SHAKESPEARE

TRAGEDIES

Seneca’s (c. 4BC-AD 65) influence:•Exaggerated rhetoric, bloody-thirsty details•Revenge tragedy:•A murder•A ghost asking for vengeance•Insanity•A play-within-a-play•Suicide•Sensational incidents•A gruesome ending

SHAKESPEARE

TRAGEDIES

•The action is generally concentrated on a single isolated individual who finds himself in opposition to his world.•His name usually gives the name to the play•The starting point is a sort of challenge which presents itself like a blow of fate•The tragic hero either tries to avoid the challenge or takes a course of action which is fatal to himself•Fate as an evil force which works against its victims through no fault of their own or a crucial mistake

HAMLET

•A revenge play which shows the uncertain ways chosen by the central hero to carry out his vengeance•Claudius’ act of murder brings disorder and infects the healthy body of society because a monarch has been killed.•The revenger’s purpose is not merely to punish wickedness but to restore order•The theme of revenge is connected to the themes of nature of order and the good ruler

HAMLET

•Appearance versus reality•Hamlet’s irresolution and his weakness•The Danish court as a Machiavellian place•It moves the centre of attention from a private vengeanceto an enquiry into the basis of human existence and the validity of any human actionIt focuses on •many issues as legitimacy of power, incest, ideas as death, suicide, the existence of a supernatural world

HAMLET

•Values as chastity, honour, loyalty, frindship•Lack of values as inconstancy, hypocrisy, betrayal,•Kinds of relationship as family bonds•Emotions as love, jealousy, hatred•Social forms as kingship, social hierarchy•A pessimistic outlook of life

SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS

•154 Sonnets

•3 quatrains and 1 final couplet

•A rich vivid descriptive language

•The effective use of rhyme

•A great range of cultural references

•The stress following the development of emotion

•Themes of love, death, time, beauty, art