ghosts (like in Hamlet), sleeping potions that mimic fatal poisons (like in Romeo and Juliet), heroic battles (like in so many plays) and attempts at adultery (like in Measure For Measure).
It's too much. And yet, it is Shakespeare. He serves up spectacle rather than thought. If he can allow himself to create a popular comedy such as The Merry Wives of Windsor, why can't he create a plain drama full of complicated plots and elegant language all leading to a final battle, after which everyone surviving is forgiven? The play lacks depth and doesn’t have us ponder the meaning of life much, but it is rich in epic qualities. It’s an extravaganza, an example of Shakespeare entertaining his audience on a large scale.
Romeo and Juliet—Love, caution
Romeo Montague is a rakish adolescent prone to fleeting infatuations. He falls in love with Juliet Capulet; unfortunately the Montague and Capulet families are bitter rivals. Romeo’s confessor, Friar Laurence, at first scolds him for his inconstancy but after realizing he is sincere and that Juliet feels as Romeo does, he sees their love as the means of resolving the destructive feud between the two families.
Alas, the feud comes to a head. Men are killed and Romeo must flee. Juliet is forcibly engaged to another man. She drugs herself to feign death and is buried in the family crypt. An unknowing Romeo seeks her out and kills himself in the crypt, falling across her body. Upon waking from her drug induced sleep, Juliet finds Romeo’s body and kills herself in despair.
Romeo and Juliet is a play about love. Now compare this play with one of Shakespeare’s Roman plays, Antony and Cleopatra.
Compare Romeo and Juliet’s obsession for each other against Antony and Cleopatra’s. What makes Romeo and Juliet’s passion love rather than lust? For one thing, it’s a more innocent feeling. Sure, Romeo is immature and there is some doubt that his newfound love for Juliet is any more genuine than what he felt before for other girls. But Romeo does commit to Juliet: he marries her. Later, when he believes her dead, he follows her.
Antony and Cleopatra are just as obsessed with each other; Antony kills himself when he believes that Cleopatra is dead and she kills herself, as did Juliet, when she realizes her lover really is dead. But Antony and Cleopatra also betray each other. Perhaps with good reasons, but at any rate with the cynicism that comes from having lived longer than Romeo and Juliet had. They lack the innocence of younger couple, and their cynicism keeps lustful buds from blooming into love.
Another trait the two plays share is that both tales warn us to be cautious of forces we cannot control. In Antony and Cleopatra we learn to fear lust; from Romeo and Juliet we learn to fear romantic love, and perhaps we are warned of the consequences of family feuds. Therefore neither play is a tragedy in the classical sense. The unhappy resolution in each play doesn’t develop from character flaws; it works out from forces hurling the protagonists to their destruction.
Love and lust aren’t the same thing but they are both intense passions and powerful manifestations of what the Greeks called the Furies, the elemental animal forces that drive us all. Without denying these forces, we must give them their due respect and beware of their influence on us.
The Rest of the Comedies
The comedies are entertaining light plays. They might have a moral or they might not. This doesn’t mean they are trivial works; good jokes offer Shakespeare ample opportunities to point out interesting aspects of human nature. For instance, we start with the classic theme of city dwellers trying to adapt themselves to country life.
As You Like It—The city mouse visits the country mouse
In Shakespeare’s day, a forest would be a place of danger but sometimes a place of refuge. In As You Like It, the main character, Rosalind, is exiled from the city by her uncle and she runs away to the Forest of Arden. Her cousin Celia chooses to accompany her. Touchstone, the court fool, joins them.
However, this forest holds no real danger. Shepherds contently live and work there. Touchstone, like many travelers discovering a new land, waxes lyrical about the joys of pastoral life. So much so that he falls in love with Audrey, a shepherdess living in Arden.
Rosalind's lover follows her into exile and seeks her out. In love, he carves poems to her on the trees. The others in Arden, including other refugees, find this all rather tedious and foolish. They prefer their trees to be free of graffiti.
The old lesson stands that city and country dwellers each know best how to lead their lives in their own place. Touchstone marries Audrey and yet Jaques predicts, in agreement with the audience, that their union might not last.
Trivia
This play contains the famous line "All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players." (Act II scene vii line 138)..
Celia, a woman of noble birth, uses a double negative: "I cannot go no further" says she. (Act II scene iv line 9)..
Sylvius and Phebe are only shepherds, but they speak in verse.
Two Gentleman of Verona—Friendship, trumped!
Does love trump friendship?
Proteus and Valentine are friends living in Verona. Valentine is off to Milan to experience the world. Valentine wants Proteus to follow him, but Proteus loves Julia, and Valentine knows that a fool in love will not leave the object of his affection. Proteus's father approves of Valentine's example however and, not knowing his son is in love, sends him off to follow Valentine.
While in Milan Valentine finds love too in the person of the Duke’s daughter, Silvia. Himself in love, he now realizes that his friend was not so foolish after all. The Duke has promised Silvia to one Thurio however, so Valentine and Silvia plan to elope. Proteus arrives in Milan, immediately falls out of love with Julia and falls in love with Silvia. Proteus is now secretly Valentine’s rival. He betrays Valentine’s plan to the Duke, who banishes Valentine. Proteus tries to have Silvia fall in love in love with him, to no avail. And then Julia shows up.
Speed and Launce, the two fools, serve Valentine and Proteus respectively. Launce understands his master wrongs Valentine. “I am but a fool, look you, and yet I have the wit to think my master is a kind of knave.” (Act III scene i line 261) Of course he is! I never held with the saying that all is fair in love in war. Not only is Proteus betraying his friend, he is also betraying Julia. How can that be fair?
Valentine takes up with outlaws, yet in the end everything resolves itself. Amazingly, both Julia and Valentine forgive Proteus. Valentine and Silvia marry, with the Duke’s and Thurio’s blessing. Thurio especially deserves mention; he gives up an advantageous political marriage simply because Silvia doesn’t love him! A wise man.
But the real spice in this play comes from Speed and Launce. Launce goes to and fro at a slow pace, often holding his dog. Himself uneducated, he educates the audience with his mistakes and malapropisms, which are perhaps foolish but which are not unwise. Speed, as befits his name, dashes here and there, makes one pun after another, confuses and confounds his masters. He electrifies the play, somewhat as does Ariel in The Tempest.
Two Gentlemen of Verona is an almost pure comedy, one offering a simple moral and a look at what friendship can withstand. Shakespeare’s message is plain and clear: stay true to your friends and to your love.
The Taming of the Shrew—Do as you’re told, wife!
This Shakespeare comedy is a fantasy about the bliss that women can enjoy if they will only do what their husbands tell them to do.
I emphasize that this is a fantasy. First it would never happen, and second even if it did, neither the husband nor the wife would really find happiness in such a marriage. At best, they would find a brief respite from the pain of nagging and fighting.
And yet there is some truth to the idea. Is a shrewish person, whether a man or a woman, really happy?
Petruchio comes to Padua to find a rich wife. Two unmarried sisters, Kate and Bianca, live with their father Baptista. Many suitors court Bianca; few dare approach th
e high spirited and shrewish Kate. Baptista has resolved however not to marry off Bianca until after his elder daughter Kate is herself married. Petruchio is presented to Kate and her father, he proposes to the father, and without further ado, the father accepts. Do as you’re told Kate!
Kate is a wild beast and needs to be taught how to behave. Petruchio takes her on a honeymoon. At their first stop, he declares the food to be unfit and by claiming to care for her health, he does not allow her to have even a bite. He finds the inn’s bedrooms unclean and will not let her sleep in a bed. Kate is soon starved and groggy from lack of sleep. Petruchio’s plan works perfectly, and Kate soon becomes a loving docile wife.
This play is even more relevant today than it was in Shakespeare’s time. Of course it’s a man’s fantasy. But imagine a man and his wife going to see this play when Shakespeare’s company first performed it. Could anyone think the wife would let her husband go to sleep that night without reminding him that the story was a fantasy? He can dream on if he thinks she will be tamed! Many sixteenth century wives must have told their husbands exactly that.
Taken at face value the play is indefensible, but we must remember that we should seldom take Shakespeare at face value. For example in The Merchant of Venice, Shylock seems to