Characters of Shakespeare's Plays

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) came of an Irish Protestant stock, and of a branch of it transplanted in the reign of George I from the county…

It is observed by Mr. Pope, that ‘If ever any author deserved the name of an original, it was Shakespeare. Homer himself drew not his art…

Cymbeline is one of the most delightful of Shakespeare’s historical plays. It may be considered as a dramatic romance, in which the most…

Macbeth and Lear, Othello and Hamlet, are usually reckoned Shakespeare’s four principal tragedies. Lear stands first for the profound…

Julius Caesar was one of three principal plays by different authors, pitched upon by the celebrated Earl of Halifax to be brought out in a…

It has been said that tragedy purifies the affections by terror and pity. That is, it substitutes imaginary sympathy for mere selfishness.…

Timon of Athens always appeared to us to be written with as intense a feeling of his subject as any one play of Shakespeare. It is one of…

Shakespeare has in this play shown himself well versed in history and state affairs. Coriolanus is a storehouse of political commonplaces.…

This is one of the most loose and desultory of our author’s plays: it rambles on just as it happens, but it overtakes, together with some…

This is a very noble play. Though not in the first class of Shakespeare’s productions, it stands next to them, and is, we think, the finest…

This is that Hamlet the Dane, whom we read of in our youth, and whom we seem almost to remember in our after-years; he who made that famous…

There can be little doubt that Shakespeare was the most universal genius that ever lived. ‘Either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral,…

Bottom the Weaver is a character that has not had justice done him. He is the most romantic of mechanics. And what a list of companions he…

Romeo and Juliet is the only tragedy which Shakespeare has written entirely on a love-story. It is supposed to have been his first play,…

We wish that we could pass this play over, and say nothing about it. All that we can say must fall far short of the subject; or even of…

Richard II is a play little known compared with Richard III, which last is a play that every unfledged candidate for theatrical fame…

If Shakespeare’s fondness for the ludicrous sometimes led to faults in his tragedies (which was not often the case), he has made us amends…

Henry V is a very favourite monarch with the English nation, and he appears to have been also a favourite with Shakespeare, who labours…

During the time of the civil wars of York and Lancaster, England was a perfect bear-garden, and Shakespeare has given us a very lively…

Richard III may be considered as properly a stageplay: it belongs to the theatre, rather than to the closet. We shall therefore criticize…

This play contains little action or violence of passion, yet it has considerable interest of a more mild and thoughtful cast, and some of…

King John is the last of the historical plays we shall have to speak of; and we are not sorry that it is. If we are to indulge our…

This is justly considered as one of the most delightful of Shakespeare’s comedies. It is full of sweetness and pleasantry. It is perhaps…

This is little more than the first outlines of a comedy loosely sketched in. It is the story of a novel dramatized with very little labour…

This is a play that in spite of the change of manners and of prejudices still holds undisputed possession of the stage. Shakespeare’s…

We wonder that Mr. Pope should have entertained doubts of the genuineness of this play. He was, we suppose, shocked (as a certain critic…

All’s Well that Ends Well is one of the most pleasing of our author’s comedies. The interest is, however, more of a serious than of a comic…

If we were to part with any of the author’s comedies, it should be this. Yet we should be loth to part with Don Adriano de Armado, that…

This admirable comedy used to be frequently acted till of late years. Mr. Garrick’s Benedick was one of his most celebrated characters; and…

Shakespeare has here converted the forest of Arden into another Arcadia, where they ‘fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden…

The Taming of the Shrew is almost the only one of Shakespeare’s comedies that has a regular plot, and downright moral. It is full of…

This is a play as full of genius as it is of wisdom. Yet there is an original sin in the nature of the subject, which prevents us from…

The Merry Wives of Windsor is no doubt a very amusing play, with a great deal of humour, character, and nature in it: but we should have…

This comedy is taken very much from the Menaechmi of Plautus, and is not an improvement on it. Shakespeare appears to have bestowed no…

We shall give for the satisfaction of the reader what the celebrated German critic, Schlegel, says on this subject, and then add a very few…

Our idolatry of Shakespeare (not to say our admiration) ceases with his plays. In his other productions he was a mere author, though not a…