Shakespeare’s Plays - They continue to live on today
William Shakespeare’s plays are known to be some of the greatest in history. They are best known for their history, comedy and tragedy.
There are three stylistic categories that Shakespeare’s plays seem to fall into. The first of these categories begins in the 1590’s with the histories and comedies. Examples of these Shakespeare’s plays include Taming of the Shrew and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Other comedies at this time include As You Like it, Much Ado About Nothing, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Merchant of Venice, All’s Well That Ends Well, and the Two Noble Kinsmen.
The next category of Shakespeare’s plays would be his darkest. These included the ever popular Romeo and Juliet and Julius Ceaser. Over the next few years, the most famous of Shakespeare’s plays were performed which included Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Othello, and Timon of Athens. These dramas which dealt mostly with murder, lust, power and betrayal are known to be the darkest of his career.
The final category of Shakespeare’s plays would be the late romances, which include The Tempest, The Winter’s Tale, Cymbeline and Prince of Tyre. The Two Noble Kinsmen is also sometimes included in this category. They are called romances because they are similar to medieval romance literature. They also share the characteristics of happy ending that usually involves the reuniting of family members who’ve been separated, magical elements, and references to Greek gods.
Shakespeare wasn’t completely involved with publishing his work and never really produced any authoritative versions, which led to what he actually wrote not being interpreted correctly in modern versions. There were no copyrights of his writings which ultimately led to bootleg copies of his plays, which were basically people trying to remember what he had actually written.
The exact chronology of Shakespeare’s plays is difficult to determine because of there not being any actual record. Plus, many were performed years before they were published.
Shakespeare’s plays continue to live on today and they are studied in both high school and college courses. William Shakespeare continues to fascinate both young and old with his stories and it’s no surprise that there have been numerous ones that were made into successful feature films over and over again such as The Taming of the Shrew in 1929, Romeo and Juliet in 1935, Henry V in 1945, Macbeth in 1948, Hamlet in 1964, Romeo and Julie again in 1990 and 1996, Hamlet in 2000.