What was Shakespeare's most famous tragedy?

Answer 1

Romeo and Juliet may be Shakespeare's most well-known play. It is probably not his best play, but it's a good one, and a lot of people have a vague idea what it is about (but not, of course, how it ends). Hamlet may possibly be his most famous play as well, since it contains the one Shakespearean quotation which everybody knows. Unfortunately there is no reliable objective way to measure fame, so we are stuck with speculation.

Answer 2

William Shakespeare's Tragedies

William Shakespeare's plays are usually categorised as Histories, Comedies and Tragedies.

The Tragedies are:

Romeo and Juliet

Coriolanus

Titus Andronicus

Timon of Athens

Julius Caesar

Macbeth

Hamlet

King Lear

Othello

Antony and Cleopatra

Troilus and Cressida (nowadays more likely to be classified as a comedy or Problem Play)

Cymbeline (nowadays more likely to be classified as a comedy or romance)
Shakespeare wrote ten tragedies: Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, Timon of Athens, Coriolanus and Titus Andronicus. Some people count Troilus and Cressida and Cymbeline (although Cymbeline is not very tragic, it was put with the tragedies in the First Folio)

Answer 3

Such a question naturally will get different opinions from different people. People will tend to name the play or plays they know best. It all is determined upon YOUR opinion. Try reading or watching a couple.

Hamlet is usually considered his best work, although some would say King Lear is just as good or even better. Both of these works are tragedies.

His best comedy is probably A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Hamlet or Macbeth by far. The others are also superb but these are the best.

There is considerable debate about this, everyone has their own favourite, but Hamlet and Macbeth are probably the front runners in the opinion polls. My personal choice would be Macbeth.

Romeo and Juliet

Hamlet is certainly Shakespeare's best known, most performed, most studied and most quoted play. That does not necessarily make it his best.

To me I think Romeo and Juliet is his best tragedy and his best comedy is A Midsummer Night's Dream.
His most popular play is Hamlet and second is probably Romeo and Juliet

Which is best? that's in the eyes of the beholder. In my opinion it's Macbeth

Answer 4

Shakespeare's TragicomediesShakespeare's plays are usually classified as Histories, Tragedies and Comedies, because that is how they were classified in the First Folio. But as we see from Polonius's tedious listing of the various permutations of these forms, such as "pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral", this simplistic three-part classification is a bit of an oversimplification. There are three main terms used to classify some of Shakespeare's plays outside of the traditional division, which are Tragicomedies, Romances and Problem Plays.

The idea of tragicomedy first arose in the sixteenth century when Sir Philip Sydney decried it as a "mongrel" form. The idea was of a play which had a serious tone, dealt with main characters who had serious moral faults and yet which ended happily. Beaumont and Fletcher explicitly used this label to refer to their plays.

In the 19th Century, some critics identified some of the plays as "Romances". These plays commence with a dark and serious situation, usually darker than the situation at the beginning of the comedies, but which end in happiness. Families which have been torn apart are reunited and reconciled. Often there is a folktale-like element in the stories.

The label "Problem Plays" was used for those plays which did not conform, for one reason or another, with the preconceptions of the critics about how the genres of comedy and tragedy ought to work. They therefore created a "problem" for the critics.

Clearly there is plenty of overlap among the labels and much room for critical dispute.

The plays usually called Romances are:

Pericles, Prince of Tyre - conventionally a Comedy.

Cymbelline - conventionally a Tragedy.

The Winter's Tale - conventionally a Comedy.

The Tempest - conventionally a Comedy.

The "Problem Plays" usually refer to Troilus and Cressida, Measure for Measure, and All's Well That Ends Well. Sometimes Cymbeline gets put in this category (and sometimes it is called a Romance, a Tragedy and a Comedy).

In the Oxford Edition of the plays, Jonathan Bate says that any of Shakespeare's plays might be called tragicomedies (as few if any of them conform to the Greek definitions of comedy and tragedy) but that Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice and The Two Noble Kinsmen in particular should be called Tragicomedies. Romeo and Juliet is somewhat strangely placed in this category because although it ends like a tragedy, it concerns middle-class people and the downfall of the protagonists is due to fate. It is actually the reverse of a Tragicomedy and should perhaps be called a Comitragedy. The play most like the Tragicomedies of Beaumont and Fletcher is, of course, the Two Noble Kinsmen, since Fletcher co-wrote it with Shakespeare, but Measure for Measure also fits the bill.

Answer 5

Your mileage may vary a good deal on this one. Everyone is likely to have their own view. I find Othello to be the most painful tragedy to watch, because he is a puppet to the evil designs of Iago, and he suffers so much. I find that much sadder than the misfortunes of the people in the other tragedies.

Answer 6

His best known tragedies are Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth.

Answer 7

Othello.

he kills his own wife. she is pure. he was tricked. so darn sad!

Answer 8

Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Henry V, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, Macbeth

Answer 9

Shakespeare wrote ten tragedies, all of which are, as you might expect, tragic.