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Shakespeare’s comedies celebrate human social life even as they expose human folly. By means
that are sometimes humiliating, even painful, characters learn greater wisdom and emerge with a clearer view of reality. Some
of his early comedies can be regarded as light farces in that their humor depends mainly upon complications of plot, minor foibles of the characters, and elements of physical
comedy such as slapstick. The so-called joyous comedies follow the early comedies and culminate in As You Like It.
Written about 1600, this comedy strikes a perfect balance between the worlds of the city and the country, verbal wit and physical
comedy, and realism and fantasy.
After 1600, Shakespeare’s comedies take on a darker tone, as Shakespeare uses the comic form
to explore less changeable aspects of human behavior. All’s Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure
test the ability of comedy to deal with the unsettling realities of human desire, and these plays, therefore, have usually
been thought of as “problem comedies,” or, at very least, as evidence that comedy in its tendency toward wish
fulfillment is a problem.
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