Which of William Shakespeare's plays have happy endings?

Answer 1

All of Shakespeare's comedies had happy endings - usually with the marriage of unmarried characters, and a lighthearted style to the entire play. Some plays which do not end in marriages are All's Well that Ends Well and Love's Labour's Lost. Some plays which do not have a lighthearted style are All's Well that Ends Well and Measure for Measure.

comedies with happy endings:

• All's Well That Ends Well
• As You Like It
• The Comedy of Errors
• Cymbeline
• Love's Labour's Lost
• Measure for Measure
• The Merchant of Venice
• The Merry Wives of Windsor
• A Midsummer Night's Dream
• Much Ado About Nothing
• Pericles Prince of Tyre
• Taming of the Shrew
• The Tempest
• Twelfth Night
• The Two Gentlemen of Verona
• The Winter's Tale

Answer 2

Most of the comedies have happy endings involving many people getting married. The "problem plays" (Measure for Measure, All's Well that Ends Well, and Troilus in Cressida) are comedies where the happy ending is not as happy as it might look on the surface. (Some people would nowadays put The Taming of the Shrew into that category as well) Some of the comedies have characters for whom the play does not end well: Twelfth Night does not end well for Malvolio or for Sir Andrew; The Merchant of Venice ends very badly for Shylock.

Some of the Histories have happy endings: Henry IV Part I ends well for everyone except Hotspur; Part II ends well for everyone except Falstaff (and he is only disappointed, not dead); Henry V has a happy ending, but with a warning that the happiness doesn't last long. Richard III, on the other hand, is as tragic as Macbeth, with which it shares the same basic plot.