Comedy and Tragedy: Love's Different Outcomes

Genre is not merely a label — it is a structural force that shapes how Shakespeare treats love. The conventions of comedy, tragedy, and romance create different expectations, different possibilities, and different meanings for the relationships at the centre of each play. Understanding genre is essential for AO2 (form and structure) and for writing the kind of sophisticated comparative analysis that examiners reward at the highest grades.

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The Generic Landscape of the Set Plays

The four set plays span Shakespeare's generic range:

Play	Genre	Date	Key Features
The Taming of the Shrew	Comedy	c.1590–92	Marriage as resolution; verbal wit; disguise and deception; festive conclusion
Othello	Tragedy	c.1603–04	Noble protagonist; fatal flaw or external evil; catastrophic conclusion; death
Measure for Measure	Problem play / dark comedy	c.1604	Resists neat generic classification; comic structure but tragic emotional register; forced marriages at the end
The Winter's Tale	Romance / tragicomedy	c.1610–11	Tragedy in first half; comedy in second; separated by a sixteen-year gap; loss followed by qualified restoration

Key Definition: A problem play (a term coined by the critic F.S. Boas in 1896) is a play that resists classification as either comedy or tragedy. Measure for Measure is the most frequently cited example: it has a comic structure (it ends in marriages) but its emotional content is deeply troubling, and its "happy ending" is anything but straightforward.

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Comic Conventions and Love

Shakespearean comedy follows recognisable structural patterns:

The Comic Structure

Stage	Feature	Example
Initial order	A stable social world with established rules and hierarchies	Padua's patriarchal household in The Taming of the Shrew
Disruption	Love disrupts the social order — a daughter rebels, a couple forms across forbidden boundaries	Katherine's "shrewishness" and Bianca's secret suitors
Green world / festive space	Characters move to a space outside normal social rules (forest, festival, disguise)	Petruchio's country house; the pastoral Bohemia in The Winter's Tale
Resolution	Marriage (usually multiple marriages) restores social order — but transformed	Kate's submission speech; the triple marriage at the end
Festive conclusion	The play ends with a feast, dance, or celebration that includes the audience	Lucentio's banquet (5.2)

Comedy and Gender

Comedy typically reinforces patriarchal order even as it temporarily disrupts it. Women may exercise agency during the comic action — disguising themselves, choosing their own partners, outwitting men — but the conclusion returns them to conventional feminine roles:

• Katherine's wit and independence are celebrated during the play but apparently surrendered in the final speech
• Perdita's pastoral freedom gives way to her restoration as a princess — a higher status, but one that comes with new social constraints

AO5 — Critical Interpretations: C.L. Barber, in Shakespeare's Festive Comedy, argues that comedy creates a "release" from social constraints followed by a "clarification" that reaffirms the social order. Applied to The Taming of the Shrew, this suggests that Kate's rebellion is the temporary release, and her submission is the clarification — the reassertion of patriarchal norms. Feminist critics have challenged this reading, arguing that the "clarification" is itself a form of violence.

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Tragic Conventions and Love

Shakespearean tragedy follows a different structural logic:

The Tragic Structure

Stage	Feature	Example in Othello
Protagonist established	A figure of high status, eloquence, and public admiration	Othello's Senate speech (1.3) establishes his nobility and rhetorical power
Hamartia or external evil	A flaw in the protagonist's character, an error of judgement, or an external force that initiates the catastrophe	Iago's malice; Othello's susceptibility to jealousy
Peripeteia	A reversal of fortune — the protagonist's situation worsens	3.3 — the temptation scene; Othello's transformation
Anagnorisis	Recognition — the protagonist understands what has happened, often too late	"Of one that loved not wisely but too well" (5.2.354)
Catastrophe	Death, destruction, the collapse of the world the play established	Desdemona's murder, Emilia's murder, Othello's suicide

Tragedy and Love

In tragedy, love is not a source of social renewal (as in comedy) but a source of destruction. The tragic protagonist's love is too intense, too absolute, too invested in the beloved — and when that love is threatened (or seems to be), the result is catastrophic:

"Then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought,
Perplexed in the extreme." (Othello, 5.2.353–56)

Othello's self-epitaph insists on the sincerity and depth of his love even as it acknowledges the destruction that love has caused. Whether this speech is genuinely self-aware or a final act of self-dramatisation is a question that divides critics.