Characteristics Of Drama In Shakespeare

Of all the arts in Elizabethan England, drama was the most popular, and left behind the most enduring legacy. A huge and varied body of Elizabethan comedy, tragedy, revenge plays and history chronicles arose. The most noted playwright of the English language, William Shakespeare (1564-1616), was only twelve years old when the first theatre was built in England. With his plays Shakespeare brought Elizabethan drama- and English culture in general to unexpected new heights. The Elizabethan period is frequently called the “Age of Shakespeare”.
Shakespeare produced a steady assortment of plays between 1589 and 1613. Like most playwrights of his time, he rarely wrote original story lines. He took his plots and characters from ancient greek and roman stories, modern European plays, folklore and history. Shakespeare wrote in four dramatic categories- comedy, history, tragedy and romance or literary works about improbable events involving characters that are quite different from ordinary people. Yet for Shakespeare the lines between these categories were not firm. There is comedy mixed in with his tragedy and often a dark side to his comedies. Some of his histories are considered tragedies, while the romances are often grouped with the comedies. His plays are known

But there could have been many reasons, why he gave his characters such qualities. It could have been the Queen Elizabeth I on the throne, or a certain influence of his marriage with older woman. Some modern critics claim, he was a feminist, or on the contrary it is historically incorrect, because we shouldn’t forget that he wrote maily for a male entertainment. Particularly in his comedies we frequently see a woman take on the strongest character, while often in his tragedies he has a male play the isolated tragic