Humor Without Borders: Shakespeare's Genre-Spanning Wit 

There were only three genres of plays in Shakespeare’s time: histories, comedies, 

and tragedies. Naturally, a playwright of Shakespeare’s caliber often mixed these 

together, such as in the so-called “tragicomedies” or sometimes “romances” such as 

The Winter’s Tale​ and T

​ he Tempest​, but for the most part his plays each had one label. 

It would be easy to take from this that the tragedies were tear-jerking and the comedies 
brought belly-laughs. It would make sense to segregate the humor in theatre; yet 

Shakespeare managed to inject humor and comedy into all of his plays, taking different 

forms based on genre and plot. 

Hamlet​ and K
​ ing Lear​ are by-the-book tragedies, but still contain beautiful 

examples of Shakespeare’s razor tongue where humor is imparted through double-talk 

and wordplay, mostly from one specific character. In comedies such as ​A Midsummer 

Night’s Dream​ and T

​ he Merchant of Venice​, the comedic split lies in what specific 

“flavor”, if you will, of comedy they are. With its bumbling peasants and same-faced 

lovers and confused but helpful faeries, A

​ Midsummer Night’s Dream​ is a comedic 
comedy, for laughs and then more laughs. With its colorful and direct protagonists 

confronting one of Shakespeare’s better remembered villains and claiming their happy 

ending for (mostly) all in a climactic final showdown, T

​ he Merchant of Venice​ is a 

dramatic comedy, the general opposite of a tragedy. In the “romances” of T

​ he Winter’s 

Tale​ and ​The Tempest​, the comedic element takes precedence over the dramatic in the 

form of slightly more tragic dramatic comedies. 

Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies and histories have their comedic moments, 

usually contained within one character’s wit. Hamlet persistently weaves elegant 
wordplay around people he speaks with, both to outsmart them and for the sheer 

pleasure of punning. ​King Lear​ contains a character explicitly named “the Fool,” whose 
purpose is to crack jokes (though they often contain hidden advice for Lear ). 

Shakespeare was a master of the English language; it comes as no surprise that he 

loved jousting with verbiage. Much of Hamlet’s snark is made possible by his mad 

demeanor; he can get away with blatant needling and constant jokes because 

everyone thinks he’s crazy anyway. Nothing about his humor detracts from or seems 

out of place in relation to the overall sword of Damocles hanging over the entire play, 

but it’s there, woven in, exactly like the lines themselves. The Fool, and to a lesser extent 

“Poor Tom” similarly make perfect sense within the context of K

​ ing Lear​, yet the 

presence of the Fool’s doublespeak and occasional mockery of Lear and his actions as 

his trusted advisor ease both Lear and the audience into understanding just how deeply 

(former) King Lear has ruined his kingdom and his life. Both of these sources of humor at 

the same time give viewers a laugh and providing some form of plot advancement or 
exposition; it thus makes sense that this comes in the form of sarcasm, irony, and other 

verbal misadventures. 

A Midsummer Night’s Dream​ is a play written primarily for its humor. Its 

characters are designed to be put into humorous situations. Its plot points revolve 

around comedic misunderstandings and ironic actions. The humor is also usually direct 

and up-front. There is very little serious about it at all, and as the title suggests, the 

whole play evokes a dreamlike feel in the audience, as they have a nice and cheerful 

dream on an otherwise quiet night. Given the plot, it’s difficult to imagine funnier 
characters to run through it. Going beyond the love triangle, we have two nearly 

interchangeable Athenian men who love two dichotomous women, in the first example 

of a love quartet I’ve seen in fiction. Naturally, due to the shenanigans of a prankster 

fairy, we get the obligatory two noblemen dueling over practically nothing at the drop of 

a hat, and the two women essentially cat-fighting over their own insecurities. 

Shakespeare included the craftsman plot to make a mockery of his own art for laughs, 
and the character of Bottom for the sole purpose to turn someone named “Bottom” into 

an ass. One of the central plot devices of the play, the love juice, is essentially 

brainwashing. Yet this is played for laughs, and when it is used to resolve the love 

quartet it is seen as the correct solution. When a work is seemingly built from the ground 

up to be as humorous as possible, the simplest course of action is to acknowledge it as 

so; being funny for the sake of funny is perfectly valid where entertainment is 
concerned, and at the end of the day that’s what this play was for. 

The Merchant of Venice​ is a comedy by nature of there being nothing else (at the 

time) to call a play with a happy ending. While it certainly has its comedic elements, by 

and large the plot is full of intrigue and conflict between the titled Merchants of Venice 

and the Daughter of Belmont. The comedy and jokes tend to be almost coincidental, the 

kinds of jokes present in modern action movies to keep the mood flowing from scene to 

scene, while the rest of the play proceeds as a drama. The scene with the most humor, 

the most levity, is Act V, scene 1, where Portia and Nerissa mess with their husbands on 

the subject of their rings. It’s a genuine laugh, and another example of Portia outwitting 

the rest of the cast. As for the rest of the play, there’s little beyond a bit of humor 

showing Shakespeare’s talent for wordplay and the occasional jab at Shylock’s greed. 

The choosing of the coffers for Portia’s hand in marriage, Jessica eloping into the night, 

and especially the entire trial sequence are filled with far more captivating tension than 

usually found in something labeled a comedy. Until Portia enters in the guise of 
Balthasar, it seems frighteningly likely that the court will acquiesce and Shylock will be 

allowed to flat-out murder Antonio for his bond. Afterwards, of course, all retire to the 

dreamy land of Belmont and Antonio’s ships miraculously arrive, to sort out the needed 

happy ending. 
 While ​The Winter’s Tale​ and T
​ he Tempest​ generally fall under the same category 

of humor as ​The Merchant of Venice​, the dramatic comedy, they are different enough in 

genre to not be directly called comedies. They function in the same overall way; the plot 

is very serious business, often involving the deaths or attempted killings of major 

characters, and significant changes in political and financial position. Humor is present, 

but used as relief, and overall there is a happy ending. What’s different about these 

plays is that they have much more direct tragic elements and tend to feature romance 
as the relief element instead of slapstick.  

In T
​ he Winter’s Tale​, for instance, the entirety of King Leontes’ problems are his 

own fault; he directly destroys his relationship with his son, wife, childhood friend, and 

loyal retainer with his own jealousy, and he seemingly orders his last hope left for dead 

on a beach. He is defeated by his own actions. Yet we then transition into a soft 

romance, and at the end Hermione is revived and all the couples are wed joyously. It’s 
strange, and for the most part defies definition. 

The Tempest​ is, at face value, a revenge attempt by Prospero against the greed 

that has robbed him of his position as Duke of Milan; it contains two separate murder 

plots and disgruntled servants. Yet, again, a large focus is on the trials of Ferdinand’s 

romance with Miranda. The murder plots go nowhere and are forgiven, Prospero himself 

is restored as Duke, and Ariel is set free. When there really only are three genres of play 

in Shakespeare’s time, how is it possible to call two plays with unashamedly happy and 
bright endings anything but comedies? 

The Merchant of Venice​ contains quite possibly my favorite straight line in all of 

Shakespeare; “If you/prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not/laugh? If you 

poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?” (III.i.60–63). It’s 

such a chilling turn of phrase, and it perfectly suits the character of Shylock and the 
message he’s trying to get across: that Jewish people are still people, and if you treat 

them like dirt they’ll hate you. There’s no comedy in this line, or in this entire situation. By 

contrast, H
​ amlet​ contains my favorite verbal joust; When Hamlet asks Guildenstern “Will 

you play upon this pipe?” (III.ii.349) Guildenstern answers ”My lord, I cannot…I have not 

the skill” (III.ii.350-55). In Hamlet’s response “You would play upon me…you would pluck 

out the heart of my mystery…and there is much music/ excellent voice, in this little 

organ, yet cannot/ you make it speak?” (III.ii.363-68), he compares his “friend’s’” 

questions to an attempt to play him like an instrument. It’s a fantastic bit of wordplay in 

a serious context that really showcases Hamlet’s character. H

​ amlet​ is a very serious 

play that revolves around suicide and righteous vengeance and ends with very nearly 
the entire cast dead, but there’s still the time in it for lines like this.  

In T
​ he Merchant of Venice​, all the laughs are filler, important filler, mind you, but 

filler to vouchsafe the message that this is a heroic tale, with a clear (at the time) villain 

and an adventurous hero. In ​A Midsummer Night’s Dream,​ the message of the play ​is 

that it’s funny. There’s no real tension to it, and there doesn’t need to be. In ​Hamlet​, the 

titular character snarks all day and night to detract from his own mounting insanity. In 

The Tempest​ and T

​ he Winter’s Tale​, the humor takes the shape of genuine romantic 

subplots. All of this comes together to show that, no matter the genre of the play or the 

reasoning behind it or the characters that deliver it, humor is always present in 
Shakespeare. 

 
 

Works Cited 

Shakespeare, William, and David M. Bevington. ​The Complete Works of Shakespeare.​ New

York: Longman, 1997. Print.