8-1Comedies

WHAT ARE SHAKESPEARE’S COMEDIES? WHAT ARE CONSIDERED TO BE HIS MOST IMPORTANT COMEDIES? //Answer prepared by Kimberly H.// William Shakespeare’s Comedies William Shakespeare was an amazingly multi-talented playwright. Instead of focusing on just one genre of theatre, he focused on three: comedies, tragedies, and histories. My favorite is comedy. Shakespeare wrote many comedies, some of which would even make a child laugh. Most of Shakespeare’s humor is raunchy and slapstick, with a little bit of wordplay mixed in. The exact number of comedies that the Bard wrote is disputed among historians. The section entitled “Shakespeare’s Plays, Listed by Genre” of Eric M. Johnson’s website “Open Source Shakespeare” lists Shakespeare’s comedies as: __All’s Well that Ends Well__; __As You Like It__; __Comedy of Errors__; __Love’s Labour’s Lost__;__Measure for Measure__; __Merchant of Venice__; __Merry Wives of Windsor__; __A Midsummer Night’s Dream__; __Much Ado About Nothing__; __Taming of the Shrew__; __Tempest__; __Twelfth Night__; __The Two Gentlemen of Verona__; and __Winter’s Tale__. The section entitled “William Shakespeare Plays” of Linda Alchin’s website “William Shakespeare-The Complete Works” adds __Cymbeline__; __Pericles, Prince of Tyre__; and __Troilus and Cressida__ to the lengthy list. The exact number of comedies is argued because in Shakespearian times the only requirement for a comedy was that it had to have a happy ending. They didn’t even have to be humorous! However, most of Shakespeare’s comedies feature dark humor as well as slapstick, clever humor along with dumb characters provided for comic relief in the more serious “comedies”. The most special part of Shakespeare’s comedies is that they still tell great stories. The comedy doesn’t overshadow the moral of the story or historical references in the story. They just make the story more entertaining! Shakespeare’s most widely-known comedy is __A Midsummer Night’s Dream__. Almost everyone has heard of the classic tale of love. You see love everywhere in this play, from the city of Athens to inside a nearby fairy kingdom; but more than that, you see comedy! From the hilarious antics of the stalkeresque Helena to the melodrama of the donkey-headed actor Bottom, this play keeps you laughing the entire time. Two other important comedies are __Taming of the Shrew__ and__Twelfth Night__, which like __A Midsummer Night’s Dream__ are both about the trials of love. These both have been remade recently into teenage comedies. These classic plays are hilarious even in their adapted form! Another hilarious play of Shakespeare’s is __Much Ado About Nothing__; about a pair of bickering quarrelers who, in the end, realize they are really in love. Shakespeare’s comedies are brilliant. I hope everyone sees one sometime in their life.

Works Cited    Alchin, Linda. "William Shakespeare Plays." //William Shakespeare-The// // Complete Works//. 19 Apr 2009 <[|http://www.william-] shakespeare.info/william-shakespeare->. Johnson, Eric M.. "Shakespeare's Plays, Listed By Genre." //Open Source// // Shakespeare//. 19 Apr 2009 <[]>