ABSTRACT
Even the darkest of Shakespeare’s plays are deliberately funny at times, but certain plays, which were mostly written in the first half of his career, get generically defined as comedies. The conventions of comedy which identify them as such include disguise (often involving cross-dressing), thwarted love, mistaken identity and marital and romantic misunderstandings. These plays end in multiple marriages. Even if these ‘rules’ are deliberately broken they remain an unspoken presence against which the play is reacting.
