Classification of the plays
Shakespeare's works include the 36 plays printed in the First Folio of 1623, listed below according to their folio classification as comedies , histories and tragedies . [180] Shakespeare did not write every word of the plays attributed to him; and several show signs of collaboration, a common practice at the time. [181] Two plays not included in the First Folio, The Two Noble Kinsmen and Pericles, Prince of Tyre , are now accepted as part of the canon, with scholars agreed that Shakespeare made a major contribution to their composition. [182] No poems were included in the First Folio. |
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In the late nineteenth century, Edward Dowden classified four of the late comedies as romances , and though many scholars prefer to call them tragicomedies , his term is often used. [183] These plays and the associated Two Noble Kinsmen are marked with an asterisk (*) below. In 1896, Frederick S. Boas coined the term " problem plays " to describe four plays: All's Well That Ends Well , Measure for Measure , Troilus and Cressida and Hamlet . [184] "Dramas as singular in theme and temper cannot be strictly called comedies or tragedies", he wrote. "We may therefore borrow a convenient phrase from the theatre of today and class them together as Shakespeare's problem plays." [185] The term, much debated and sometimes applied to other plays, remains in use, though Hamlet is definitively classed as a tragedy. [186] The other problem plays are marked below with a double dagger (‡).
Plays thought to be only partly written by Shakespeare are marked with a dagger (†) below. Other works occasionally attributed to him are listed as lost plays or apocrypha. |
