Cummings Guides Home..|..Contact This Site..|..Shakespeare Videos..|..Shakespeare Books
.
By Michael J. Cummings © 2003.

Early Period

Plays: Comedy of Errors, Henry VI Part I, Henry VI Part II, Henry VI Part III, King John, Love's Labour's Lost, Midsummer Night's Dream, Richard II, Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, Taming of the Shrew, Titus Andronicus, Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Style in General: Technically rigid; somewhat immature. The plots generally are well organized.
Characterization:Often superficial or shallow compared with the characterization in later plays. Romeo and Juliet, in which characterization is strong, is an exception.
Dialogue: Sometimes stilted, unnatural. Shakespeare tries hard–maybe too hard–to be consistent in the structure of his lines, making his words fit established conventions rather than making them express the mercurial, inner voice that guided him in later plays. Puns and other rhetorical devices abound, making the wording clever but not always profound. In Richard II, John of Gaunt makes puns even as he is dying. When the king asks how he is, Gaunt uses his name (the same as the adjective gaunt, meaning thin, bony and haggard) in a "punny" reply:

Oh, how that name befits my composition!
Old Gaunt indeed, and gaunt in being old,
With me grief hath kept a tedious fast,
And who abstains from meat that is not gaunt?

Plays: All's Well That Ends Well, As You Like It, Hamlet*, Henry IV Part I, Henry IV Part II, Henry V, Julius Caesar, Measure for Measure*, Merchant of Venice*, Merry Wives of Windsor, Much Ado About Nothing, Othello*, Troilus and Cressida, Twelfth Night.
Style in General: Less technically rigid; more creative. The plots are generally well designed. Shakespeare demonstrates his range by writing outstanding works in three genres: comedy (As You Like It, Twelfth Night), tragedy (Hamlet, Julius Caesar) and history (Henry IV Part I, Henry V). In addition, he presents a highly tragic character, Shylock, in a comedy (The Merchant of Venice). 
Characterization: Strong and rounded, reflecting deep insight into human nature. Among the magnificent character portrayals of this period are those of Hamlet, Macbeth, Shylock, Othello, Iago, and Brutus. In Henry IV Parts I and II, Shakespeare achieves a wonderful balance between the comic (represented by Sir John Falstaff) and the serious (represented by Hotspur and others). 
Dialogue: A mixture of verse and prose. Shakespeare also uses the soliloquy as more than a device to disclose the direction of the plot, to present pretty poetry, or to deliver long-winded asides. In Hamlet, Macbeth, and Julius Caesar, for example, soliloquies plumb the depths of the characters' souls, revealing doubt, indecision, fear, and ambition. The "To be or not to be" soliloquy in Hamlet, perhaps the most famous passage in English literature, reveals all of these emotions:

Overflowing Period

Plays: King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, Macbeth, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens
Style in General: Highly creative; bursting with insight. Shakespeare ignores many rules to allow his genius to "overflow." The plots of this period sometimes twist and turn, challenging the reader with their complexity. 
Characterization: Superb, deeply insightful
Dialogue: Often highly suggestive of the speaker's state of mind and suffused with memorable metaphors, similes and other figures of speech. Many passages are in prose. The following prose passage in the storm scene in Act III, Scene IV, of King Lear reveals all of these characteristics. Lear is addressing Edgar in the presence of the Fool. After speaking the lines, Lear tears off his clothes.

Why, thou wert better in thy grave than to answer with thy uncovered body this extremity of the skies. Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! here's three on 's are sophisticated! Thou art the thing itself:  unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor bare, forked animal as thou art. Off, off, you lendings! Come unbutton here.

Prithee, nuncle [Lear], be contented; 'tis a naughty night to swim in. Now a little fire in a wild field were like an old lecher's heart; a small spark, all the rest on 's body cold. Look, here comes a walking fire. [Gloucester enters with a torch.]

Plays: Cymbeline, Henry VIII, Pericles, The Tempest, The Winter's Tale
Style in General: Masterly. Shakespeare has just the right mix of technical skill, creativity, and wisdom while exhibiting hope for flawed humanity. Shakespeare tends to prefer times and places far removed from Elizabethan England–as in The Tempest, Pericles, and Cymbeline–although Henry VIII is certainly an exception here.
Characterization: Several plays of this period–including Pericles, The Winter's Tale, and Cymbeline–introduce characters who suffer loss, then regain what they have lost. Superb, deeply insightful
Dialogue: Highly creative, with many memorable passages in both verse and prose. The following passages, the first in verse and the second in prose, are from The Tempest:
.
Ariel's Song, Act I, Scene II
.

        Full fathom five thy father lies;
        Of his bones are coral made;
        Those are pearls that were his eyes:
        Nothing of him that doth fade
        But doth suffer a sea-change
        Into something rich and strange.
        Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell

Prospero Speaking to Ferdinand and Miranda, Act IV, Scene I 
.

        Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
        As I foretold you, were all spirits and
        Are melted into air, into thin air:
        And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
        The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
        The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
        Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve
        And, like this insubstantial pageant faded.
..