Shakespearean problem play

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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[who?] 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".[1] The term can refer to the subject matter of the play, or to a classification "problem" with the plays themselves.



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. The three plays are also 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.


  1. ^ a b F. S. Boas, Shakespeare and his Predecessors, John Murray, Third Impression, 1910, pp. 344–408.