SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS: GENRES

Shakespeares plays are traditionally classified into 3 categories:

chronicles (history plays, histories), comedies and tragedies.
Nowadays scholars tend to classify Shakespeare's four final plays
(Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winters Tale and The Tempest) as
romances, despite the fact that "romance" was not a term of generic
classification in Shakespeare's own time.
CHRONICLES:
The chronicles are usually defined as plays about the history of Great
Britain based on historical annals, such as Raphael Holinsheds
Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (1577 1587), to which
Shakespeare adhered fairly closely. Such a definition, however, may
be misleading especially if we take into account the fact that
Macbeth is also about British history; yet it is not placed together with
the chronicles. Moreover, for Shakespeare and his contemporaries
King Lear was an authentic historical figure and so the eponymous
tragedy could also be described as a play about the history of Britain.
There is hardly any danger of readers/spectators confusing
Shakespeares chronicles with his comedies. Henry V is the only
chronicle that could potentially cause confusion of this kind. It does
end with the promise of a marriage between King Henry of England
and the Princess of France. However, we know that the marriage is not
going to bring lasting peace to the two hostile powers. The ending of
this chronicle thus differs markedly from the truly happy endings of
Shakespeares comedies. Shakespeares chronicles are rooted in
history as a process and this precludes the possibility of an
unproblematic positive solution.
Because they are rooted in history as an ongoing process, the
chronicles likewise differ from Shakespeares tragedies. At the end of
a tragedy we usually experience a sense of things coming to an end.
The chronicles, on the other hand, leave us with a sense of history

continuing and of the inevitability of change. We should bear in mind,

however, that this difference is definitely not absolute: the endings of
some tragedies (e. g. Hamlet) are also problematic and we are left with
a sense of events continuing to unfold rather than coming to an end.
COMEDY
Because of his humanist education, Shakespeare was familiar with
classical (Greek and Latin) comedy. Greek "old comedy" (e.g.
Aristophanes, ca.448-380 B.C.) was generally satirical and frequently
political in nature. Greek "new comedy" (e.g. Menander, ca. 343-291
B.C.) involved sex and seduction and often showed youth outwitting
old age. Although Menander's plays have survived only in fragments,
Shakespeare would have known his work through the Latin
adaptations of the Roman poet Terence (ca. 190-159 B.C.). The Latin
comedies of Terence and another Roman poet, Plautus (ca. 258?-184
B.C.), were much studied in Elizabethan schools. (From his humanist
grammar school education, Shakespeare also learned about characters
such as Theseus and Hippolyta or Pyramus and Thisbe, whose story is
found in Ovid's Metamorphoses). From Terence and Plautus,
Shakespeare learned how to organize a plot in a way modern editors
may represent as a five-act structure. Loosely speaking, it moves
from:
A situation with tensions or implicit conflict (Exposition)
Implicit conflict is developed (Rising Action)
Conflict reaches height; frequently an impasse (Turning Point)
Things begin to clear up (Falling Action)
Problem is resolved, knots untied (Conclusion)
Thus, the action of a comedy traces a movement from conflict to the
resolution of conflict, from some sort of (generally figurative)
bondage to freedom, despite obstacles, complications, reversals, and
discoveries. It ends with celebration and unity. This stage often
includes the expulsion or elimination of characters so lost or
misguided that they cannot be accommodated or restored to society

(e.g. Shylock, Malvolio). Hence a touch of sadness or reality may

impinge on the final celebration.
This structure differentiates Shakespeare's comedies from earlier
works that presented the seemingly random adventures of a hero in a
relatively formless way (e.g. a series of episodes of courtship and
adultery). A non-dramatic model for this sort of story is found in the
playwright Thomas Nash's prose romance, The Unfortunate Traveller
(1594). The episodic structure of early Renaissance comedy also
recalls medieval Mystery cycles (series of plays on sacred history,
from Creation to the Last Judgment).
From the works of Plautus and Terence, Shakespeare learned to use
certain stock characters, e.g. the prodigal youth and his female love
interest; "blocking figures" who provide the obstacle to be overcome,
such as the senex (Latin for "old man," cf. "senile"), a parent or
guardian of the hero or heroine (who may be in love with her himself).
Other stock characters include the shrewish wife, the pedant, the
braggart soldier, the parasite, clowns, outlaws, clever servants, female
confidantes. In classical and Shakespearean comedies, the hero and
heroine may have socially inferior helpers. The hero and heroine's
supporters are frequently led by a jester, fool or buffoon (e.g.
Touchstone, Feste). Pompous sour types (doctors, lawyers, clergymen,
police -- and sometimes professors!) uphold the dignity of the
institutions they represent and are frequently mocked for their selfimportance. Shakespeare's youthful works make extensive use of
stock characters; they also appear (less extensively) in the works of his
dramatic maturity.
The Conventions of Shakespearean Romantic Comedy
The major conventions of Shakespearean Romantic Comedy are:
- The main action is about pre-marital love. The lovers must overcome
obstacles and misunderstandings before being united in harmonious
union. The ending frequently involves a parade of couples to the altar
and a festive mood or actual celebration (expressed in dance, song,

feast, etc.). A Midsummer Night's Dream has four such couples; As

You Like It has four; Twelfth Night has three. The relations of the
young lovers may be a source of humour. Even though young love
may appear laughable at times, it is assumed to be essential to human
happiness.
- The setting is usually exotic (A Midsummer Night's Dream, for
instance, is set in Athens) while at the same time being strongly
reminiscent of England in practically every single detail; the exoticism
is thus merely nominal.
- Frequently (but not always), the plot contains elements of the
improbable, the fantastic, the supernatural, or the miraculous, e.g.
unbelievable coincidences, improbable scenes of recognition/lack of
recognition, wilful disregard of the social order (nobles marrying
commoners, beggars changed to lords), instantaneous conversions (the
wicked repent), enchanted or idealized settings, supernatural beings
(witches, fairies, Gods and Goddesses). The happy ending may be
brought about through supernatural or divine intervention (comparable
to the deus ex machina in classical comedy, where a God appears to
resolve the conflict) or may merely involve improbable turns of
events.
- In the best of the mature comedies, there is frequently a
philosophical aspect involving weightier issues and themes: personal
identity; the importance of love in human existence; the power of
language to help or hinder communication; the transforming power of
poetry and art; the disjunction between appearance and reality; the
power of dreams and illusions).
TRAGEDY
The genre of tragedy is rooted in the Greek dramas of Aeschylus
(525-456 B.C., e.g. the Oresteia and Prometheus Bound), Euripides
(ca. 480?-405 B.C., e.g. Medea and The Trojan Women) and
Sophocles (496-406 B.C., e.g. Oedipus Rex and Antigone). One of

the earliest works of literary criticism, the Poetics of the Greek

philosopher Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), includes a discussion of tragedy
based in part upon the plays of Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles.
While Shakespeare probably did not know Greek tragedy directly, he
would have been familiar with the Latin adaptations of Greek drama
by the Roman playwright Seneca (ca. 3 B.C.-65 A.D.; his nine
tragedies include a Medea and an Oedipus). Both Senecan and
Renaissance tragedy were influenced by the theory of tragedy found in
Aristotle's Poetics.
Classical Tragedy: According to Aristotle's Poetics, tragedy
involves a protagonist of high estate ("better than we") who falls
from prosperity to misery through a series of reversals and
discoveries as a result of a "tragic flaw," (tragic error), generally an
error caused by human frailty. Aside from this initial moral weakness
or error, the protagonist is basically a good person: for Aristotle, the
downfall of an evil protagonist is not tragic (Macbeth would not
qualify on the surface at least). In Aristotelian tragedy, the action (or
fable) generally involves revolution (unanticipated reversals of what is
expected to occur) and discovery (in which the protagonists and
audience learn something that had been hidden). The third part of the
fable, disasters, includes all destructive actions, deaths, etc. Tragedy
evokes pity and fear in the audience, leading finally to catharsis (the
purgation of these passions).
Medieval tragedy: A narrative/story (not a play) concerning how a
person falls from high to low estate as the Goddess Fortune spins
her wheel. In the Middle Ages, there was no "tragic" theatre;
medieval theatre in England was primarily liturgical drama, which
developed in the later Middle Ages (15th century) as a way of
teaching scripture to the illiterate (mystery plays) or of reminding
them to be prepared for death and God's Judgment (morality plays).
Medieval "tragedy" was found not in the theatre but in collections of
stories illustrating the falls of great men (e.g. Bocaccio's Falls of
Illustrious Men, Chaucer's Monk's Tale from the Canterbury Tales,
and Lydgate's Falls of Princes). These narratives owe their
conception of Fortune in part to the Latin tragedies of Seneca, in
which Fortune and her wheel play a prominent role.

English Renaissance tragedy derives less from medieval tragedy

(which randomly occurs as Fortune spins her wheel) than from the
Aristotelian notion of the tragic flaw, a moral weakness or human
error that causes the protagonist's downfall. Unlike classical tragedy,
however, it tends to include subplots and comic relief. From Seneca,
early Renaissance tragedy borrowed the "violent and bloody plots,
resounding rhetorical speeches, the frequent use of ghosts . . . and
sometimes the five-act structure" (Norton Anthology of English
Literature, 6th ed., vol. I, p. 410).
According to Canadian scholar Northrop Frye, five stages of action
are discernible in tragedy; his scheme can be fruitfully applied to
Shakespearean tragedy as well:
1) Encroachment. The protagonist takes on too much, makes a
mistake that causes his/her "fall." This mistake is often unconscious
(an act blindly done, through over-confidence in one's ability to
regulate the world or through insensitivity to others) but still violates
the norms of human conduct.
2) Complication. The building up of events aligning opposing forces
that will lead inexorably to the tragic conclusion. "Just as comedy
often sets up an arbitrary law and then organizes the action to break or
evade it, so tragedy presents the reverse theme of narrowing a
comparatively free life into a process of causation."
3) Reversal. The point at which it becomes clear that the hero's
expectations are mistaken, that his fate will be the reverse of what he
had hoped. At this moment, the vision of the dramatist and the
audience are the same. The classic example is Oedipus, who seeks the
knowledge that proves him guilty of murdering his father and
marrying his mother; when he accomplishes his objective, he realizes
he has destroyed himself in the process.
4) Catastrophe. The catastrophe exposes the limits of the hero's
power and dramatizes the waste of his life. Piles of dead bodies
remind us that the forces unleashed are not easily contained; there are

also elaborate subplots (e.g. Gloucester in King Lear) which reinforce

the impression of a world inundated with evil.
5) Recognition. The audience (sometimes the hero as well)
recognizes the larger pattern. If the hero does experience recognition,
he assumes the vision of his life held by the dramatist and the
audience. From this new perspective he can see the irony of his
actions, adding to the poignancy of the tragic events

SHAKESPEARE'S FOUR FINAL PLAYS:

The Romances
"Romance" was not a term of generic classification in Shakespeare's
time. The modern term "romance" refers to a new kind of play, a
hybrid of comic and tragic elements, developed and popularized by
Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher between 1607 and 1613. At the
end of his theatrical career, Shakespeare wrote four such plays which
are now commonly grouped together as the Romances:
Pericles (1607-1608);
Cymbeline (1609-1610); originally published in as one of the
Tragedies
The Winter's Tale (1610-1611); originally published as one of
the Comedies
The Tempest (1611); also published as one of the Comedies
Presumably, Shakespeares colleagues grouped Cymbeline with the
tragedies and The Winter's Tale and The Tempest with the comedies
because they felt that tragic elements predominated in the former and
comic elements in the latter.
Because romances combine both tragic and comic elements, Fletcher
called them "tragi-comedies" According to Fletcher, a tragi-comedy
"wants deaths, which is enough to make it no tragedy, yet brings some
near it, which is enough to make it no comedy." Like comedy,
romance includes a love-intrigue and culminates in a happy ending.

Like tragedy, romance has a serious plot-line (betrayals, tyrants,

usurpers of thrones) and treats serious themes; it is darker in tone
(more serious) than comedy. While tragedy emphasizes evil, and
comedy minimizes it, romance acknowledges evil -- the reality of
human suffering.
Romance is a natural step in describing human experience after
tragedy. Tragedy involves irreversible choices made in a world where
time leads inexorably to the tragic conclusion. In Romance, time
seems to be "reversible"; there are second chances and fresh starts. As
a result, categories such as cause and effect, beginning and end, are
displaced by a sense of simultaneity and harmony. Tragedy is
governed by a sense of Fate (Macbeth, Hamlet) or Fortune (King
Lear); in Romance, the sense of destiny comes instead from Divine
Providence. Tragedy depicts alienation and destruction, Romance,
reconciliation and restoration. In tragedies, characters are destroyed
as a result of their own actions and choices; in Romance, characters
respond to situations and events rather than provoking them. Tragedy
tends to be concerned with revenge, Romance with forgiveness. Plot
structure in Romance moves beyond that of tragedy: an event with
tragic potential leads not to tragedy but to a providential experience.
The providential "happy ending" of a Romance bears a superficial
resemblance to that of a comedy. But while the tone of comedy is
genial and exuberant, Romance has a muted tone of happiness -- joy
mixed with sorrow. Like comedies, Romances tend to end with
weddings, but the focus is less on the personal happiness of bride and
groom (the culmination of an individual passion) than on the healing
of rifts within the total human community. Thus, whereas comedy
focuses on youth, Romance often has middle-aged and older
protagonists in pivotal roles. Similarly, while tragedy deals with
events leading up to individual deaths, Romance emphasizes the cycle
of life and death. While tragedy explores characters in depth
(emphasis on individual psychology), Romance focuses instead on
archetypes, the collective and symbolic patterns of human experience.
Compared to characters in a Shakespearean tragedy (or comedy),
romance characters may seem shallow or one-dimensional. But

Romance characters are not meant to be psychologically credible;

their experiences have symbolic significance extending beyond the
limits of their own lives and beyond rational comprehension. In
Romance, the emphasis shifts from individual human nature to
Nature.
Romance is unrealistic. Supernatural elements abound, and characters
often seem "larger than life" (e.g. Prospero) or one-dimensional (e.g.
Miranda and Ferdinand). Plots are not particularly logical (cause and
effect are often ignored). The action, serious in theme, subject matter
and tone, seems to be leading to a tragic catastrophe until an
unexpected trick brings the conflict to harmonious resolution. The
"happy ending" may seem unmotivated or contrived, not unlike the
deus ex machina ("God out of the [stage] machinery") endings of
classical comedy (where a God appears at the end of the play to "fix"
everything). Realism is not the point. Romance requires us to
suspend disbelief in the "unrealistic" nature of the plot and experience
it on its own terms.
The Conventions of Shakespeare's Romances
Some of the characteristics of SHAKESPEAREAN ROMANCE
include:
- an enveloping conflict (war, rebellion, jealousy, treachery, intrigue)
that may cover a large time span (conflict begun a generation before
events of play) and is resolved at end of play;
- happy endings to potentially tragic situations (e.g. apparent
resurrection, sudden conversions, etc.);
- themes of transgression, expiation and redemption; villain(s)
penitent rather than punished at the end;
- improbable plots; rapid action; surprises; extraordinary
occurrences (shipwrecks; disguises; riddles; children/parents lost
and found; supernatural events/beings)