Page 203 - DENG402_HISTORY_OF_ENGLISH_LITERATURE

History of English Literature

Notes 26.2.1 Shakespearean Problem Play

In Shakespeare studies, the term problem plays normally refers to three plays that William
Shakespeare wrote between the late 1590s and the first years of the seventeenth century: All’s Well
That Ends Well, Measure for Measure and Troilus and Cressida, although some critics would
extend the term to other plays, most commonly The Winter’s Tale, Timon of Athens, and The
Merchant of Venice. The term was coined by critic F. S. Boas in Shakespeare and his Predecessors
(1896), who lists the first three plays and adds that “Hamlet, with its tragic close, is the connecting-
link between the problem-plays and the tragedies in the stricter sense.” The term can refer to the
subject matter of the play, or to a classification “problem” with the plays themselves.
The term derives from a type of drama that was popular at the time of Boas’ writing. It was most
associated with the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. In these problem plays the situation
faced by the protagonist is put forward by the author as a representative instance of a contemporary
social problem. For Boas this modern form of drama provided a useful model with which to study
works by Shakespeare that had previously seemed to be uneasily situated between the comic and
the tragic, though nominally the three plays identified by Boas are all comedies. For Boas,
Shakespeare’s “problem plays” set out to explore specific moral dilemmas and social problems
through their central characters. Boas writes, throughout these plays we move along dim untrodden
paths, and at the close our feeling is neither of simple joy nor pain; we are excited, fascinated,
perplexed, for the issues raised preclude a completely satisfactory outcome, even when, as in All’s
Well and Measure for Measure, the complications are outwardly adjusted in the fifth act. In Troilus
and Cressida and Hamlet no such partial settlement of difficulties takes place, and we are left to
interpret their enigmas as best we may. Dramas so singular in theme and temper cannot be strictly
called comedies or tragedies. We may therefore borrow a convenient phrase from the theatre of
today and class them together as Shakspere’s problem plays.
The problem plays are characterised by their complex and ambiguous tone, which shifts violently
between dark, psychological drama and more straightforward comic material; All’s Well and
Measure for Measure have happy endings that seem awkward, artificial and perfunctory, while
Troilus ends with neither a tragic death, nor a happy ending. Boas used the term for plays in which
the resolution of the themes and debates seems inadequate, and in the final act the deliverance of
justice and completion one expects does not occur. Other definitions have followed, but all center
on the fact that the plays cannot be easily assigned to the traditional categories of comedy or
tragedy.

Notes The three plays are referred to as the dark comedies, since despite ending on a
generally happy note for the characters concerned, the darker, more profound issues
raised cannot be fully resolved or ignored.
Many critics have suggested that this sequence of plays marked a psychological turning point for
Shakespeare, during which he lost interest in the romantic comedies he had specialized in and
turned towards the darker worlds of Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth. The term has also
been applied to other odd plays from various points in his career, as the term has always been
somewhat vaguely defined and is not accepted by all critics.
Far from being plays with fatal flaws, as one might imagine from the name, problem plays are
actually plays which are designed to confront viewers with modern social problems. Typically, the
theme of the play is socially relevant, and the characters confront the issue in a variety of ways,
presenting viewers with different approaches and opinions. After seeing a problem play, one is
supposed to be filled with interest in the topic at hand, and hopefully inspired to enact social change.

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