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Shakespearean comedies

  • The TempestThe Tempest opens with a ship shattering apart in a storm, sailors screaming, and a king convinced he is about to drown.
  • As You Like ItAs You Like It, William Shakespeare's pastoral comedy believed written in 1599, opens not with a grand battle or a royal proclamation but with a wrestling…
  • Twelfth NightTwelfth Night, or What You Will opens with a shipwreck and a woman washing up on a foreign shore, alone, believing her twin brother has drowned.
  • All's Well That Ends WellAll's Well That Ends Well is a play by William Shakespeare that has puzzled audiences and critics alike for centuries. It first appeared in the First Folio…
  • Measure for MeasureThe play Measure for Measure first appeared in print within the First Folio of 1623, though scholars believe it was written during 1603 or 1604.
  • Much Ado About NothingWilliam Shakespeare wrote Much Ado About Nothing during the years 1598 and 1599. The play first appeared in print when stationers Andrew Wise and William…
  • The Winter's TaleThe play The Winter's Tale draws its main plot from Robert Greene's pastoral romance Pandosto, published in 1588. Shakespeare made uncharacteristically…
  • The Merchant of VeniceThe Merchant of Venice, a play by William Shakespeare, hinges on a single clause in a loan agreement: if the borrower defaults, the lender may cut exactly…
  • Shakespearean comedyShakespearean comedy arrived at the world's attention not through a single celebrated play, but through an act of editorial sorting.
  • A Midsummer Night's DreamA Midsummer Night's Dream opens in Athens, four days before a wedding, with a father dragging his daughter before a duke and invoking a law that would see…
  • CymbelineCymbeline begins with a king who has already lost almost everything. His two infant sons were stolen years before the play opens.
  • The Taming of the ShrewThe Taming of the Shrew opens not with a wedding or a courtship, but with a prank. A mischievous nobleman finds a drunken tinker named Christopher Sly passed…
  • The Two Noble KinsmenWilliam Shakespeare wrote The Two Noble Kinsmen in 1613 or 1614, his final play before he retired to Stratford-upon-Avon, where he died in 1616.
  • Pericles, Prince of TyrePericles, Prince of Tyre arrived in print in 1609 as a quarto edition and was reprinted five times before 1635, making it one of the most popular plays of…
  • The Comedy of ErrorsThe Comedy of Errors is one of William Shakespeare's earliest plays, and it gave the English language something most plays never do: a common idiom.
  • The Two Gentlemen of VeronaThe Two Gentlemen of Verona holds a peculiar distinction among Shakespeare's works: it may be the play that started everything.