The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

Drama · Comedy · Tragedy · Tragicomedy

First published: 1975
Print length: 1436 pagesHarperCollins UK, 2007

Description

This collected Works brings together thirty-seven plays and seven poetic works by William Shakespeare, presenting the range of his writing rather than a single continuous subject. The drama spans comedies, histories, tragedies, and late romances, from the courtship plots and mistaken identities of the comedies to the political violence and moral collapse of Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, and Romeo and Juliet, as well as the reconciliation and theatrical wonder of The Tempest. The poetry includes Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, The Phoenix and the Turtle, and the Sonnets. Across these forms, Shakespeare repeatedly examines political legitimacy, ambition, jealousy, love, mortality, time, performance, and the uncertain survival of art.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Dialogue-driven · Ornate · Poetic · Witty

Pace

Variable

Tone

Dark · Humorous · Philosophical · Romantic

Structure

Anthology

Focus

Character · Ideas · Voice

Emotional intensity

5 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 5 / 5
Ideas: 5 / 5
Structure: 4 / 5
Background knowledge: 4 / 5

Themes

AmbitionArt and creativityLoveMortalityPolitics and ideologyPower

About William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare wrote plays and poems, and his drama ranges from romantic comedy to history and tragedy. Its characteristic movement comes from characters testing motives and power through speech. Public rhetoric, private soliloquy, quick verbal wit, and dense poetic imagery do not merely decorate the action. They change loyalties, expose divided minds, and propel plots toward consequences the speakers cannot control. Hamlet suspends a revenge story inside its prince’s arguments with himself and emotionally charged confrontations with others. Macbeth is faster and more compressed, turning prophecy and intimate persuasion into a chain of murders as fear and guilt overtake its conspirators. In Romeo and Juliet, lyric courtship and comedy share the stage with street violence, so private desire remains entangled with an inherited public feud. Shakespeare repeatedly builds drama from unstable crossings between performance and belief, love and social command, political language and collective action. His shifts of register let clowns, rulers, lovers, and plotters inhabit the same play without speaking in a single authorial voice.