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British Drama

Notes “Mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare” was “the most excellent in both kinds [comedy and
tragedy] for the stage.” The plays listed in Meres’s review—indicating that Shakespeare had already
completed them—included Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of
Venice, Love’s Labors Lost, Richard II, and Titus Andronicus. “I say that the Muses would speak
with Shakespeare’s fine filed phrase,” Meres concluded, “if they would speak English.” In 1599,
Shakespeare enjoyed what seems to have been an explosively productive year, with Much Ado
About Nothing, As You Like It, Julius Caesar, and The Merry Wives of Windsor all likely penned in
that one year.

Globe Theatre
The Chamberlain’s Men performed for the queen in the royal court, but they also performed for the
middle-class public. In 1599 the company finished construction on the Globe Theatre, a wooden,
open-air playhouse designed with the stage in the center and the audience arranged in tiers that
rose up from the polygon-shaped floor. Many of Shakespeare’s best-known plays premiered here,
including Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, and Twelfth Night.
Literary Works

With Richard III, Henry VI, The Comedy of Errors, and Titus Andronicus under his belt, Shakespeare
was a popular playwright by 1590. The year 1593, however, marked a major leap forward in his
career. By the end of that year, he secured a prominent patron in the Earl of Southampton and his
Venus and Adonis was published. It remains one of the first of his known works to be printed and
was a huge success. Next came, The Rape of Lucrece. Shakespeare had also made his mark as a poet
and most scholars agree that the majority of Shakespeare’s sonnets were probably written in the
1590s.
The same year that he joined the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet,
along with Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Taming of the Shrew, and several other plays. Two of his
greatest tragedies, Hamlet and Julius Caesar, followed around 1600. Hamlet is widely considered
the first modern play for its multi-faceted main character and unprecedented depiction of his psyche.
The first decade of the seventeenth century witnessed the debut performances of many of
Shakespeare’s most celebrated works, including many of his so-called history plays: Othello in 1604
or 1605, Antony and Cleopatra in 1606 or 1607, and King Lear in 1608. The last play of his to be
performed was probably King Henry VIII in either 1612 or 1613.
Tragedy
Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, Romeo
and Juliet, Timon of Athens, Titus Andronicus.

History
Henry IV, part 1, Henry IV, part 2, Henry V, Henry VI, part 1, Henry VI, part 2, Henry VI, part 3,
Henry VIII, King John, Richard II, Richard III

Comedy Tragedy
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, All’s Well That Ends Well, As You Like It, Cymbeline, Loves Labours
Lost, Measure for Measure, Much Ado About Nothing, Pericles, Prince of Tyre, The Comedy of
Errors, The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest,
Troilus and Cressida, Twelfth Night, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Winter’s Tale
Poem
A Lover’s Complaint, Sonnets, The Passionate Pilgrim, The Phoenix and the Turtle, The Rape of
Lucrece, Venus and Adonis

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