Recently Updated Pages
Poems and Sonnets
Our idolatry of Shakespeare (not to say our admiration) ceases with his plays. In his other produ...
Doubtful Plays of Shakespeare
We shall give for the satisfaction of the reader what the celebrated German critic, Schlegel, say...
The Comedy of Errors
This comedy is taken very much from the Menaechmi of Plautus, and is not an improvement on it. Sh...
Merry Wives of Windsor
The Merry Wives of Windsor is no doubt a very amusing play, with a great deal of humour, characte...
Measure for Measure
This is a play as full of genius as it is of wisdom. Yet there is an original sin in the nature o...
The Taming of the Shrew
The Taming of the Shrew is almost the only one of Shakespeare’s comedies that has a regular plot,...
As You Like It
Shakespeare has here converted the forest of Arden into another Arcadia, where they ‘fleet the ti...
Much Ado About Nothing
This admirable comedy used to be frequently acted till of late years. Mr. Garrick’s Benedick was ...
Love's Labour's Lost
If we were to part with any of the author’s comedies, it should be this. Yet we should be loth to...
All's Well That Ends Well
All’s Well that Ends Well is one of the most pleasing of our author’s comedies. The interest is, ...
The Merchant of Venice
This is a play that in spite of the change of manners and of prejudices still holds undisputed po...
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
This is little more than the first outlines of a comedy loosely sketched in. It is the story of a...
Twelfth Night, or What You Will
This is justly considered as one of the most delightful of Shakespeare’s comedies. It is full of ...
King John
King John is the last of the historical plays we shall have to speak of; and we are not sorry tha...
Henry VIII
This play contains little action or violence of passion, yet it has considerable interest of a mo...
Richard III
Richard III may be considered as properly a stageplay: it belongs to the theatre, rather than to ...
Henry VI: In Three Parts
During the time of the civil wars of York and Lancaster, England was a perfect bear-garden, and S...
Henry V
Henry V is a very favourite monarch with the English nation, and he appears to have been also a f...
Henry IV: In Two Parts
If Shakespeare’s fondness for the ludicrous sometimes led to faults in his tragedies (which was n...
Richard II
Richard II is a play little known compared with Richard III, which last is a play that every unfl...