Comedies. Merchant of Venice, Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It, Winter’s Tale, The Tempest, Twelfth Night.

Tragedies. Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello.

Historical Plays. Julius Caesar, Richard III, Henry IV, Henry V, Coriolanus, Antony and Cleopatra.

DOUBTFUL PLAYS.  It is reasonably certain that some of the plays generally attributed to Shakespeare are partly the work of other dramatists.  The first of these doubtful plays, often called the Pre-Shakespearian Group, are Titus Andronicus and the first part of Henry VI.  Shakespeare probably worked with Marlowe in the two last parts of Henry VI and in Richard III.  The three plays, Taming of the Shrew, Timon, and Pericles are only partly Shakespeare’s work, but the other authors are unknown. Henry VIII is the work of Fletcher and Shakespeare, opinion being divided as to whether Shakespeare helped Fletcher, or whether it was an unfinished work of Shakespeare which was put into Fletcher’s hands for completion. Two Noble Kinsmen is a play not ordinarily found in editions of Shakespeare, but it is often placed among his doubtful works.  The greater part of the play is undoubtedly by Fletcher. Edward III is one of several crude plays published at first anonymously and later attributed to Shakespeare by publishers who desired to sell their wares.  It contains a few passages that strongly suggest Shakespeare; but the external evidence is all against his authorship.

SHAKESPEARE’S POEMS. It is generally asserted that, if Shakespeare had written no plays, his poems alone would have given him a commanding place in the Elizabethan Age.  Nevertheless, in the various histories of our literature there is apparent a desire to praise and pass over all but the Sonnets as rapidly as possible; and the reason may be stated frankly.  His two long poems, “Venus and Adonis” and “The Rape of Lucrece,” contain much poetic fancy; but it must be said of both that the subjects are unpleasant, and that they are dragged out to unnecessary length in order to show the play of youthful imagination.  They were extremely popular in Shakespeare’s day, but in comparison with his great dramatic works these poems are now of minor importance.

Shakespeare’s Sonnets, one hundred and fifty-four in number, are the only direct expression of the poet’s own feelings that we possess; for his plays are the most impersonal in all literature.  They were published together in 1609; but if they had any unity in Shakespeare’s mind, their plan and purpose are hard to discover.  By some critics they are regarded as mere literary exercises; by others as the expression of some personal grief during the third period of the poet’s literary career.  Still others, taking a hint from the sonnet beginning “Two loves I have, of comfort and despair,” divide them all into two classes, addressed to a man