When did William Shakespeare write comedies?

Answer 1

Many people think that either The Comedy of Errors or Love's Labour's Lost might be Shakespeare's first play. If not, they are among the first four or five. The last play Shakespeare worked on was a collaboration with John Fletcher on The Two Noble Kinsmen, which is perhaps a tragicomedy since it works out ok for some characters but not much for some others. Almost all of Shakespeare's last plays, except for Henry VIII, were these odd kinds of comedy, sometimes called romances.

In other words, Shakespeare wrote comedies throughout his career. However, the comedies are different in each of his four main writing period. His early comedies are experimental, using different forms and endings. In his early middle period, from about the time the Lord Chamberlain's Men were formed to the time of his father's death, he expanded on the themes found mainly in his early play the Two Gentlemen of Verona. In his later middle period he wrote darker comedies like Measure for Measure and All's Well that Ends Well. In his late period he wrote romances like The Tempest.