Shakespeare: Tragedy, Comedy, and History

Classic Literature II: Medieval & Early Modern

Course 2 · Chapter 6 · Shakespeare: Tragedy, Comedy, and History

This course has raised genuine, scholarship-documented authorship questions again and again — Homer, the Mahabharata and Ramayana, Beowulf, Journey to the West. Shakespeare offers something different: a famous "authorship question" of his own that turns out, on close inspection, to be a genuinely different kind of doubt entirely.

William Shakespeare: A Life in Stratford and London

1564–1616

William Shakespeare was born and, by tradition, died in Stratford-upon-Avon, both dates traditionally given as 23 April, in 1564 and 1616 respectively. He married Anne Hathaway in 1582, and they had three children — Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. His son Hamnet died in 1596, at age eleven.

Hamnet and Hamlet: A Real Question, Genuinely Unresolved

In Elizabethan parish records, "Hamnet" and "Hamlet" were genuinely interchangeable variant forms of the same name — that part is solid historical fact.

A serious case, but still a speculative one — the claim that Hamnet's death directly inspired Hamlet is popular but not settled scholarship. Shakespeare left no letters or diaries confirming any such connection, and Hamlet was written roughly four years later, drawing on pre-existing sources (an earlier, now-lost play often called the "Ur-Hamlet," and the medieval chronicler Saxo Grammaticus). Scholars including Stephen Greenblatt have made a genuinely serious case for the connection — pointing, among other evidence, to a strikingly relevant grieving-mother speech in King John, written around the same time as Hamnet's death — but it remains circumstantial and actively debated, not proven.

The First Folio: Saved From Being Lost

1623 — Published by Fellow Actors

The First Folio was published in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare's death, by his fellow actors in the King's Men, John Heminges and Henry Condell. It organized his plays into three categories — Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies — the same three-way division this chapter itself borrows.

Eighteen plays that would very likely be lost otherwise — around eighteen of Shakespeare's plays, including Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, The Tempest, and Antony and Cleopatra, had never been printed before the First Folio and survive today only because of it.

Shakespeare's total output is commonly cited as roughly 39 plays, 154 sonnets, and a small number of narrative poems — though the exact play count is genuinely debated, since some works are collaborative or disputed.

The "Authorship Question": A Different Kind of Doubt

🔮 Not the Same Shape of Question Popular theories claim Francis Bacon, Edward de Vere, or Christopher Marlowe secretly wrote Shakespeare's works. This is genuinely fringe — not an open scholarly debate the way this course's own real authorship questions have been. The distinction matters: Shakespeare's authorship was never seriously questioned during his own lifetime or for roughly a century and a half afterward; the doubt first emerged in the 18th century, largely from modern assumptions about class and education rather than any actual gap in the documentary record. Real contemporary evidence — legal records, the First Folio itself, direct testimony from colleagues — supports Shakespeare as author, with no comparable evidence for any alternative candidate. That's genuinely different in kind from Beowulf's anonymous poet or the Mahabharata's composite, orally transmitted authorship, where no single name was ever attached to the work in the first place.

Comedy, History, Tragedy: Shakespeare's Own Three Categories

Comedies

Plays built around romantic entanglement, mistaken identity, and resolution — Twelfth Night, As You Like It, A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Histories

Plays dramatizing English royal history — Richard III, Henry V, the two parts of Henry IV.

Tragedies

Plays built around a central downfall — Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Othello.

Did Shakespeare Really Invent All Those Words?

Overstated, honestly — Shakespeare is popularly credited with inventing well over a thousand English words and phrases. The real explanation is more modest: the Oxford English Dictionary's editors recorded his works as the earliest surviving written citation for many words and phrases — which reflects what happened to survive in writing and get indexed by OED volunteers who searched his works disproportionately, not proof that he personally coined every one of them from nothing. Many were likely already in informal spoken use. "Earliest surviving written record" is the accurate framing, not "invention."

The Globe, and Richard III as Political Theatre

The Globe Theatre was built in 1599. It burned down on 29 June 1613, during a performance of Henry VIII, when a theatrical cannon effect ignited its own thatched roof — it was rebuilt by early 1614, this time with a tiled roof.

Richard III as documented political propaganda — Shakespeare's Elizabeth I was the granddaughter of Henry VII, who defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. Shakespeare's Richard III, written under Elizabeth's own Tudor dynasty around 1593, portrays Richard as a villainous, physically deformed usurper — genuinely understood by historians as reflecting and reinforcing the "Tudor myth," a narrative built on earlier Tudor-era historians like Thomas More, casting Henry VII's victory as a providential rescue from tyranny rather than a neutral account of events.
🔮 A Second Case of Literature as Politics Chapter 2 of this course covered Dante placing real political enemies directly into Hell. Shakespeare's Richard III does something structurally similar with an entire historical reign — using the stage, rather than an eternal afterlife, to shape how an audience remembers a real ruler on behalf of the dynasty currently in power.

Two Authorship Questions, Compared

This Course's Genuine Authorship QuestionsShakespeare's "Authorship Question"
When did doubt first arise?Often from the moment of composition, or ancient tradition itselfNot until the 18th century, over a century after his death
Contemporary documentation?Frequently absent or minimalSubstantial — legal records, colleagues' direct testimony, the First Folio
Scholarly status todayGenuinely open or actively debatedSettled consensus; the doubt is popular, not academic

Questions to Sit With

Reflection 1

This chapter draws a sharp line between "genuine open scholarly authorship questions" and Shakespeare's own fringe one. Do you find that distinction persuasive, or does it feel like drawing a convenient line to protect one author's reputation over others'?

Reflection 2

The Hamnet/Hamlet connection is emotionally compelling but genuinely unproven. Why do you think readers are so drawn to biographical explanations for great art, even when the actual evidence is thin?

Reflection 3

Richard III shaped popular memory of a real king for centuries, in service of the dynasty that defeated him. What responsibility, if any, do you think a writer has when dramatizing real historical figures under a living political power?

Quick Reference — Chapter 6

  • William Shakespeare (1564–1616) — born and died in Stratford-upon-Avon; married Anne Hathaway; son Hamnet died in 1596 at age 11
  • The Hamnet/Hamlet connection is a serious but genuinely unproven scholarly hypothesis, not settled fact
  • The First Folio (1623) preserved 18 plays that would very likely otherwise be lost; organized into Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies
  • Roughly 39 plays, 154 sonnets, and a few narrative poems — the play count itself is genuinely debated
  • The popular "authorship question" is a fringe theory, not a genuine scholarly debate, unlike Homer's, the Mahabharata's, or Journey to the West's real authorship puzzles
  • The "Shakespeare invented 1,700+ words" claim is overstated — many are simply the earliest surviving written record, not necessarily his own invention
  • Richard III reflects genuine, documented Tudor political propaganda, reinforcing Henry VII's own claim to the throne

What's Next

Chapter 7: Cervantes' Don Quixote.