NAVIGATION: Index of Dr. Weller's Class Materials Index of English 450 Materials

Common Elements in Shakespeare's Comedies
The Death Threat


A Midsummer Night's Dream: Egeus demands that his daughter Hermia obey him or die.


The Merchant of Venice: We come breathtakingly close to seeing Antonio's heart cut out.


Much Ado About Nothing: Leonato's ardent wish that his daughter, Hero, should die, and Beatrice's demand that Benedick kill his best friend, Claudio.


As You Like It: Oliver encourages Charles the Wrestler to break the neck of Oliver's brother Orlando, and Duke Frederick exiles his niece, Rosalind, and threatens her with death if she comes within twenty miles of court.


Twelfth Night: Olivia vows seven-years' mourning for her dead brother, and Viola mourns the brother she believes to be dead.




Gender Bending


The Taming of the Shrew: In the Induction, a page pretends to be the wife of the great lord who now believes himself to be Sly the Tinker, and after Katherine breaks a lute over his head, Hortensio says that she will never become a musician because, she'll sooner prove a soldier


A Midsummer Night's Dream: Helena's outrage at Demetrius for disrespecting her womanhood | Francis Flute objects to playing Thisbe, the lady love of Pyramus: "Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming."


The Merchant of Venice: Portia tells her lady-in-waiting, Nerissa, that they will disguise themselves as men, and brags that she'll be better at playing a dude than Nerissa will be, and later in the play, in her disguise as the judge who saved the life of Antonio, her husband's friend, Portia teaches her husband a very important lesson about his wife.


Much Ado About Nothing: Beatrice's wish that she were a man.


As You Like It: Rosalind, disguised as a fair young man (Ganymede), plays the part of Rosalind in order to cure the man that Rosalind loves of the sickness of his love for Rosalind.


Twelfth Night: Orsino tells "Cesario" (Viola in disguise as a young man) that he will be the most persuasive messenger of his love for Olivia, and when Cesario does speak to Olivia, he does win her heart, but for himself, by accident.




Love and Marriage


The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, and As You Like It all end in the celebration of the marriages of multiple couples. In Twelfth Night the marriages of two couples is assured, but the final part of the last scene focuses on Malvolio's anger.


All of the six plays portray love mistakes. Suitors are too old, or too silly, or too egotistical. Or someone may be in love with a boy who is really a girl, or with a man who is really an ass. Or a couple may quarrel epically, then fall in love.




Character Types


All six plays have at least one heroine who challenges the emotional clichés and societal pieties of the time. She is often contrasted with another, much more conventional, female character.


All six plays have at least one clown. -- Clowns seem to fall into two types: The buffonish, the most famous of which is Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing, and the witty fool, exemplified by Touchstone in As You Like It.