Shakespeare's Plays
Shakespeare is generally agreed to have written 36 plays in his lifetime. Some people believe he wrote up to 39 plays, but we can’t be sure of the authorship of some, including Edward III. Some of Shakespeare’s later plays, like Pericles, are believed to have been written by Shakespeare with the help of another playwright.
Shakespeare’s plays can be divided into four categories:
- Comedies, including A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night and Taming of the Shrew.
- Tragedies, including Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello and King Lear.
- History Plays, including Henry V, Richard III and Henry IV Parts 1 & 2.
- Romances, including Pericles, The Tempest, Cymbeline and The Winter’s Tale.
There is a lot of debate about the chronology of Shakespeare’s plays (that is, in what order they were written). One theory suggests the following timeline:
| 1588–97 | Love’s Labour’s Lost |
| 1589–92 | Henry VI, Part 1; Titus Andronicus |
| 1589–94 | The Comedy of Errors |
| 1590–92 | Henry VI, Part 2 |
| 1590–93 | Henry VI, Part 3 |
| 1590–94 | The Taming of the Shrew, The Two Gentlemen of Verona |
| 1590–95 | Edward III |
| 1592–94 | Richard III |
| 1594–96 | King John, Romeo and Juliet |
| 1595–96 | A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Richard II |
| 1596–97 | The Merchant of Venice; Henry IV, Part 1 |
| 1597–98 | Henry IV, Part 2 |
| 1597–1601 | The Merry Wives of Windsor |
| 1598–99 | Much Ado About Nothing |
| 1598–1600 | As You Like It |
| 1599 | Henry V |
| 1599–1600 | Julius Caesar |
| 1599–1601 | Hamlet |
| 1600–02 | Twelfth Night |
| 1601–02 | Troilus and Cressida |
| 1601–05 | All’s Well That Ends Well |
| 1603–04 | Measure for Measure, Othello |
| 1605–06 | King Lear |
| 1605–08 | Timon of Athens |
| 1606–07 | Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra |
| 1606–08 | Pericles |
| 1608 | Coriolanus |
| 1608–10 | Cymbeline |
| 1609–11 | The Winter’s Tale |
| 1611 | The Tempest |
| 1612–14 | The Two Noble Kinsmen |
| 1613 | Henry VIII |
Shakespeare also wrote two narrative poems - Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, and many people think they were written when the theatres were shut down during to plague in 1592–93 and 1593–94. Shakespeare also wrote an allegorical poem called The Phoenix and the Turtle sometime around 1601.
Shakespeare also wrote 154 sonnets, but we’re not sure when exactly. They were most likely written between 1593–1600.