Characters of Shakespear's Plays Merry Wives of Windsor". The bulk of Hazlitt's commentary on the two history plays is devoted to Falstaff, whom he considers to be "perhaps the most substantial comic character ever invented". Falstaff had been of interest to Shakespearean commentators for years. Forty years earlier, a full-length book had appeared, "An Essay on the Dramatic Character of Sir John Falstaff" (1777), by Maurice Morgann, often taken as the beginning of that school of Shakespearean criticism which considers the characters of Shakespeare's plays as though they were real people. Hazlitt, who seems to have had little acquaintance with Morgann's work, is careful
Shakespearean problem play dilemma that instigates multiple opposing but equally plausible opinions from the audience. Using this theory, Schanzer distinguishes only "Measure for Measure" as a Shakespearean problem comedy, identifying both "All's Well That Ends Well" and "Troilus and Cressida" as lacking of a pivotal ethical dilemma that divides the audience. Schanzer offers "Julius Caesar" and "Antony and Cleopatra" in the place of previously recognized problem plays. Shakespearean problem play In Shakespeare studies, the problem plays are 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"