Shakespeare’s Early Works: Themes, Styles, and Characters
Shakespeare’s Early Style
Shakespeare’s Early Style: The Two Gentlemen of Verona compares social classes, whilst The Taming of the Shrew is a sexist comedy. The servants are going to speak the truth in the first one; they will perceive reality better than the royal classes. One of the common things in his early comedies is the perception of reality, substance and shadow, and deception. The use of female roles disguised as men is one of the most repetitive topics in Shakespeare’s plays, normally in his comedies. The infidelity of men is another topic in his plays, in the form of criticism. Love can last one week or your whole life. The dialogues between lovers in his first plays present very serious problems (death, exile, etc.) but in a comic romantic frame. The first characters of Shakespeare are not made to create sympathy in the audience but to be comic; he wanted to fill the theaters, without any philosophical charge. One of the best achieved literary devices is repetition, a device that he will even mock, so he is aware of the fact that his style must evolve and improve. One of the elements recurrent in Shakespeare’s comedies is the setting, nature or urban. Also, the difficult balance between friendship and love, because being in love makes you weak.
Tragedies
Tragedies: His first tragedy, Titus Andronicus, a collaborative play, is an example to see how the obscurity one can find in Shakespeare’s plays moves in time and becomes more realistic. His style is also full of similes.
Historical Plays
Historical Plays: Both tragedies and historical plays have something in common. We refer to the tetralogy of Shakespeare, the first one. They share the idea of characters as orators; similes are encapsulated in orations; they are delivering very long speeches. The last part of this tetralogy is the sole play in which the villain is the hero and the protagonist at the same time. Richard III is one of the best villains created by Shakespeare, before Claudius and Lady Macbeth among others. Stichomythia is present, when three characters speak at the same time having three different conversations so they overlap. These dialogues are also characterised by the use of classical references and biblical intertexts; the quasi-liturgical colloquies force the capacity of Richard III as an orator. He strives for power and feels fear at the same time. Evil characters are characterised by subordinate sentences, Latin lexico, and long words, being the opposite for comic characters that use Anglo-Saxon vocabulary and simpler grammar. As Dickens imitates Shakespeare, he also imitates the literature preceding him; his most immediate sources (apart from the Bible and chronicles) are the morality plays from the Middle Ages. He borrows the characters of the doctor (The Vice, a stock character, who would be Richard in Shakespeare’s play) and the boy from the Mummer’s Play. The complexity of Richard III is represented in his monstrous mind and the psychological process undergoing, taken from Sir Thomas Moore’s tradition, probably the originator of the Tudor myth. A much more elaborate type of Vice will be seen in Shakespeare’s second tetralogy, but not in an evil character but in a comic one (Jack Falstaff).
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet: The themes are love, faith vs. freedom, hate, youth, morality, individual vs. society, etc. Within the motifs, there is juxtaposition, as light and dark, youth and age, love and hate. The symbols are poison, that represents how humans can turn nature into lethal and horrible things. Also, thumb-biting, because the two heads of the families are kids, foolish, and the stupidity of the fight is also represented. The last one is the Queen Mab, that is the fantasy, daydreams, and desires. There is also a chorus, which is not characters but a device, normally an actor performing other non-important roles, dressed in long dresses, very well dressed, as he is the voice of the story, who knows more than any other character. The chorus utters sonnets; every time that he/she speaks, a sonnet will be presented. The fact that Shakespeare’s plays don’t have stage direction is good and bad, as the directors are more free but we lose some details.