Browse Shakespeare’s comedies, histories, tragedies, Roman plays, romances, and difficult hybrids.
Shakespeare’s plays resist tidy shelves. A comedy can contain humiliation; a history can question patriotic myth; a tragedy can make room for jokes; and the late romances move from extreme loss toward improbable recovery.
Begin with the question that interests you. For political power, try Julius Caesar or Richard II. For love under pressure, read Romeo and Juliet or Much Ado About Nothing. For theatre itself, begin with Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, or The Tempest.
Search by title, genre, character, or theme.
Helena pursues Bertram across France and Italy, using intelligence, persistence, and a substituted encounter to fulfil the conditions he sets against their marriage.
Tragedy / Roman playMark Antony’s devotion to Cleopatra collides with Roman duty, imperial rivalry, and the political discipline represented by Octavius Caesar.
ComedyExile turns the Forest of Arden into a testing ground where Rosalind, disguised as Ganymede, teaches Orlando how difficult and theatrical love can be.
ComedyTwo pairs of identical twins unknowingly converge in Ephesus, producing arrests, accusations, domestic chaos, and a final recovery of family.
Tragedy / Roman playA brilliant Roman soldier cannot convert military honour into democratic politics; pride, popular anger, and maternal power drive him toward exile and revenge.
RomanceImogen’s marriage, exile, false death, Roman invasion, and astonishing reunion produce one of Shakespeare’s most crowded experiments in loss and restoration.
TragedyA prince commanded by his father’s ghost to avenge murder tests the truth through theatre while grief, surveillance, and delay consume the Danish court.
HistoryPrince Hal moves between the tavern world of Falstaff and the royal crisis created by Hotspur’s rebellion, rehearsing the ruler he intends to become.
HistoryAn ageing king and a sick kingdom wait for succession while Falstaff expects that Hal’s accession will reward their old companionship.
HistoryThe new king claims the French crown, rallies an outnumbered army at Agincourt, and turns military victory into a dynastic marriage.
HistoryEnglish power in France weakens after Henry V’s death as Joan of Arc rises abroad and rival nobles deepen divisions at home.
HistoryCourt faction, popular rebellion, and the king’s political weakness push England toward the Wars of the Roses.
HistoryCivil war destroys families and political restraint as York and Lancaster exchange victories, crowns, and acts of escalating revenge.
HistoryThe fall of Buckingham, the divorce of Katherine, Wolsey’s collapse, and Elizabeth’s birth turn Tudor history into a sequence of spectacular reversals.
Tragedy / Roman playBrutus joins a conspiracy to kill Caesar in the name of republican liberty, only to discover that political violence escapes its authors’ intentions.
HistoryA disputed crown, foreign war, papal pressure, and the fate of young Arthur expose sovereignty as both legal argument and brutal possession.
TragedyLear divides his kingdom according to public declarations of love, setting loose a catastrophe of family betrayal, political collapse, madness, and recognition.
ComedyFour men swear off women and pleasure for study, then immediately meet four women whose wit defeats their elaborate language and evasions.
TragedyA prophecy awakens Macbeth’s ambition; after murdering Duncan, he and Lady Macbeth enter a cycle of fear, tyranny, guilt, and further bloodshed.
Problem playVienna’s deputy Angelo enforces dormant sexual laws, then abuses his authority when Isabella asks him to spare her condemned brother.
Comedy / Problem playBassanio’s courtship of Portia depends on Antonio’s dangerous bond with Shylock, bringing romance, money, prejudice, and law into one courtroom.
ComedyFalstaff attempts to seduce two married women for money, but Mistress Ford and Mistress Page coordinate a series of public and domestic humiliations.
ComedyFour lovers, a quarrelling fairy court, and amateur actors enter an Athenian wood where desire becomes magically unstable before a comic restoration.
ComedyBeatrice and Benedick are tricked into admitting love while Claudio is deceived into publicly rejecting Hero, joining verbal comedy to social cruelty.
TragedyIago turns Othello’s trust into suspicion, persuading him that Desdemona is unfaithful until jealousy overcomes evidence, love, and judgement.
RomancePericles travels through danger, marriage, shipwreck, apparent bereavement, and years of grief before recovering his daughter and wife.
HistoryRichard’s confiscation of Bolingbroke’s inheritance turns royal misrule into deposition and forces both men to confront what makes a king legitimate.
HistoryRichard converts wit, theatricality, and ruthless violence into a path to the crown, inviting the audience into complicity before his regime collapses.
TragedyTwo young people from hostile Veronese families fall in love, marry secretly, and are destroyed by inherited violence, haste, failed communication, and chance.
ComedyPetruchio courts and disciplines Katherina while Bianca’s suitors use disguises and bargains, making marriage a contested performance of gender and power.
RomanceProspero uses magic, theatre, and a controlled storm to bring his enemies to an island, test them, recover his dukedom, and choose whether to forgive.
TragedyTimon’s lavish generosity attracts false friends; financial ruin transforms his idealised love of society into absolute hatred of humankind.
TragedyA Roman general’s ritual violence begins a revenge contest with Tamora in which family, state, and body are subjected to escalating cruelty.
Problem playA love affair unfolds inside the stalled Trojan War, where military heroes appear compromised and private promises collapse under political exchange.
ComedyShipwrecked Viola disguises herself as Cesario and enters a chain of misdirected desire, while Malvolio becomes the target of a cruel household joke.
ComedyValentine and Proteus leave Verona for Milan, where Proteus betrays friendship and love in pursuit of Silvia before a difficult reconciliation.
RomancePalamon and Arcite move from sworn brotherhood to rivalry over Emilia, while a jailer’s daughter descends into lovesick distress.
RomanceLeontes’s baseless jealousy destroys his family; sixteen years later, time, pastoral renewal, recognition, and an apparent miracle make restoration possible.