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[[caption-width:311:THE Spoony Bard!]]
Shakespeare (baptized 26 April 1564 - died 23 April 1616), [[SmallReferencePools the only playwright most people can name]], has been a major influence on English language fiction for 400 years. While most only know his plays through PopculturalOsmosis, the tropes he invented or popularised are still with us today.

Many of his plays and plots are [[OlderThanTheyThink traceable back to older sources]], but [[TropeCodifier he made them his own]]. Trace back most of TheOldestOnesInTheBook and [[TheZerothLawOfTropeExamples you will find Shakespeare]], and before him no one anyone much has heard of.

Many series have parodied Shakespeare's plays, or [[SchoolPlay staged them]], and there have been innumerable film adaptations. Indeed, one contestant on the first series of ''Big Brother'' in Germany was lampooned for believing Shakespeare to be a film director like Tarantino, based on the sheer number of films around with his name in the title...

The "Big Five Tragedies"-- ''{{Hamlet}}'', ''{{Macbeth}}'', ''RomeoAndJuliet'', ''{{Othello}}'', and ''KingLear'' -- are widely considered the five greatest works of literature in the English language. Shakespeare holds the record of having four of his plays running on Broadway simultaneously. No other playwright has come close.

Incidentally, he left his wife his "second-best bed" in his will, which has had historians scratching their heads for centuries. The most normal sounding explanation was that the second-best bed was the one he and his wife slept in, the best bed was reserved for guests. Unfortunately, muddying up the water is the fact that Shakespeare was quite cool to his wife, spending most of his life away from home. He only married her in the first place because he got her pregnant. Maybe. We don't ''know'' much about the man's personal history, and the gaps have been filled with a lot of patchwork speculation over the decades. (See Authorship Question below.)

Due to Shakespeare's wide-ranging influence and extremely high renown, any time you want to establish a character as smart and classy, just have him [[StockShoutOuts quote a couple of apropos lines from a Shakespeare play.]] It works every time, hero or villain.

He's also become [[ShakespeareInFiction a popular fictional character in his own right]].

'''The Authorship Question'''

EpilepticTrees are hardly new or limited to genre fandoms. Since the early 18th century, some have [[WildMassGuessing speculated that "William Shakespeare" was just a pen name for one or more other individuals]]. People who believe this hypothesis are generally called ''anti-stratfordians''; those who hold to the generally accepted view of Shakespearian authorship (i.e. that William Shakespeare did in fact write the works attributed to him) are dubbed ''stratfordians''. With entire books and websites dedicated to arguing one way or the other, this is clearly SeriousBusiness to some.

A brief and amusingly snarky (''stratfordian'') analysis of some of the different author theories can be found [[http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_extracts/article2326698.ece here]].

Perhaps you want to [[SoYouWantTo/BeTheNextWilliamShakespeare emulate this esteemed fellow?]]
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!!Widespread Shakespearean tropes include:

* AffablyEvil
* AnachronismStew: Shakespeare [[DidNotDoTheResearch rarely bothered to do the research]]. But no one watches his plays for the historical content, even the ones that are supposedly about historical events.
* AnyoneCanDie
* BetaCouple: including, appropriately, Benedick and Beatrice, although in popularity they've far eclipsed MuchAdoAboutNothing's OfficialCouple, Hero and Whatshisface.
* CardCarryingVillain
* ComeToGawk
* CompleteMonster
* DoubleEntendre: Lots and lots and ''lots.'' Your high school teachers did not mention half of them, [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids probably on purpose.]]
* DuelToTheDeath
* GetTheeToANunnery (many of his plays are absolutely bawdy, but language has changed so much that modern audiences will not understand this; can seriously impact the comedies, in particular, which lose a lot of their humour)
* GrokkingTheHorrorshow: invented many words and terms, including 'doorknob'.
** It might be more accurate to say that he used words in ways that were new and creative - he took the word 'assassin' (a member of an Islamic cult who carried out murders) and created the word 'assassination'.
* HilarityEnsues
* HomeSweetHome
* HurricaneOfPuns
* KillEmAll
* LoveHurts
* LoveTriangle
* MagnificentBastard
* MissingEpisode (Records indicate that Shakespeare wrote plays entitled ''Cardenio'' and ''Love Labour's Won''. Unfortunately, no copies of them are known to exist)
* OracularUrchin / WaifProphet - Child, jester, and/or crazy person? Count on them to speak God's own truth.
* PoorCommunicationKills
* ProphecyTwist / NoManOfWomanBorn
* RecursiveCrossdressing
* RoyalBlood
* SlapSlapKiss / ShutUpKiss
* TheSmurfettePrinciple - But when women aren't allowed to perform on-stage, what're ya' gonna do?
* StoryArc - Some of his histories have many recurring characters.
* SweetPollyOliver - Likewise.
* TheyDo
* TrueArtIsAngsty (Shakespeare's tragedies are better known than his comedies)
* TwoLinesNoWaiting
* UnaccustomedAsIAmToPublicSpeaking
* VindicatedByHistory / DeaderThanDisco: The reputation of both Shakespeare himself and his individual works has varied widely over the years. For instance the now largely forgotten ''King John'' was one of the most popular plays in the Victorian era while ''Troilus and Cressida'' was not performed at all between between 1734 and 1898.
* WildMassGuessing - According to BillBryson, any claim about Shakespeare's personal life beyond what's on official records is this given how staggeringly little is actually known about Shakespeare's home life.
* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids? - JuniorHigh teachers do not seem to understand that either: their students are ''not'' going to understand a word, or [[DoubleEntendre they shouldn't]].
* YouFailHistoryForever / YouFailGeographyForever: Not really Shakespeare's fault, though, given his lack of formal education and the small number of history and geography books available in his time.
** Shakespeare may not have been educated or well-traveled, but he had plenty of opportunities to talk to people who were. He probably just didn't care about period, cultural, or historical accuracy, and wrote plays that were intended For Entertainment Purposes Only.
** Most of Shakespeare's sources on history, such as Holinshed's Chronicles, are essentially propaganda pieces and are therefore rather liberal with the truth, so in large part it's not Shakespeare that failed history, it is the historians.
** Also, Shakespeare himself was writing propaganda promoting the current English royalty, understandable considering he lived and died (financially at the very least) on their good opinion.

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!!The plays, their individual tropes, and well-known adaptations include:
%%If a play has its own page, its tropes go there. Otherwise this page grows large enough to crash the Internet. Thanks.
* All's Well That Ends Well
** AllLoveIsUnrequited
** BedTrick
** DirtyCoward
** EngagementChallenge
** JerkAss
** TitleDrop
* Antony and Cleopatra
** BearerOfBadNews
** DoNotGoGentleIntoThatGoodNight (subverted)
** FakingTheDead
** LoveRuinsTheRealm
** NameAndName
** ShapedLikeItself (trope namer)
** TagTeamSuicide
* As You Like It
** {{Arcadia}}
** GhibliHills
** HaveAGayOldTime
** HeelFaceTurn
** HeterosexualLifePartners
** WholesomeCrossdresser
* The Comedy of Errors
** IdiotPlot
** TheMasochismTango
** SeparatedAtBirth
* {{Coriolanus}}
** BreakTheHaughty
** EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas
** FoeYay
** HypocriticalHumor
* Cymbeline
** {{Arcadia}}
** BerserkButton
** FauxDeath
** GodSaveUsFromTheQueen
** MistakenForCheating
** SweetPollyOliver
** WrongfulAccusationInsurance
* {{Hamlet}}
** ''TheLionKing''
* HenryIV, Parts 1 and 2
* HenryV
* HenryVI, Parts 1-3
* Henry VIII
** CorruptChurch
** KangarooCourt
** PoliticallyCorrectHistory
* JuliusCaesar
* King John
** MamaBear
** HeroicBastard
** TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth
* KingLear
* Love's Labours Lost
** HurricaneOfPuns
** {{Malaproper}}
** PaperThinDisguise
** RashEquilibrium
* [[strike:{{Macbeth}}]] TheScottishPlay
** YOU FOOL! YOU'VE DOOMED US ALL!
* Measure for Measure
** BedTrick
** TheChessmaster
** {{Malaproper}}
** RashEquilibrium
** TheScarpiaUltimatum
** SecretIdentity
** TitleDrop
** TheUmbridge
* TheMerchantOfVenice
* The Merry Wives of Windsor
** CounterZany
** MistakenForCheating
** PaperThinDisguise
** ZanyScheme
* [[AMidsummerNightsDream A Midsummer Night's Dream]]
* MuchAdoAboutNothing
* {{Othello}}
* Pericles, Prince of Tyre
** AndKnowingIsHalfTheBattle
** CanonSue
** ContrivedCoincidence
** EasyEvangelism
** IdiotBall
** [=~Morton's Fork~=]
** OnlyMostlyDead
** TenderTears
** VillainousIncest
* Richard II
** AntiVillain
** [[BannedInChina Banned in England]] (used and requested by Essex and his plotters to advocate overthrowing Queen Elizabeth)
** FisherKing (deconstructed)
** RageAgainstTheReflection
** RegentForLife (a more sympathetic example than most)
** TooDumbToLive
* RichardIII
* RomeoAndJuliet
** ''TheLionKing II''
* TheTamingOfTheShrew
** ''TenThingsIHateAboutYou''
* TheTempest
** ''ForbiddenPlanet''
* Timon of Athens
** BuriedTreasure
** TheDaria (male version)
** ImpoverishedPatrician
** MaddenIntoMisanthropy
** PrideBeforeAFall
** ShapedLikeItself
** YourMom (really!)
* TitusAndronicus
* Troilus and Cressida
** AchillesInHisTent (literally)
** AdaptationDecay
** CassandraTruth
** CharacterExaggeration
** DoingInTheWizard (the gods do not appear)
** LoveTriangle
** NameAndName
** ShoutOut (to Marlowe)
* TwelfthNight
** ''ShesTheMan''
* Two Gentlemen of Verona
** DeusExMachina
** LoveMakesYouEvil
*The Winter's Tale
** {{Arcadia}}
** BabiesMakeEverythingBetter: Paula tries to invoke this. It's hard on the baby.
** EverythingsWorseWithBears
** ExitPursuedByABear: The most famous stage direction ever written is the TropeNamer
** FauxDeath: [[spoiler:Hermione]]
** LittlestCancerPatient: [[spoiler: Mammilius]]
** KangarooCourt: Hermione's trial
** LampshadeHanging
** MistakenForCheating
** MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Leontes.
** MosesInTheBullrushes: Perdita
** PaperThinDisguise: subverted; various disguises adopted are transparent to various degrees
** TimeSkip
** TitleDrop
** YouHaveWaitedLongEnough
In addition to his plays, Shakespeare also wrote a series of sonnets and several longer poems. Tropes found in these include:
* TheBeautifulPeople (The Sonnets)
* ChasteHero (Adonis, in "Venus and Adonis")
* ChildfreeIsNotAllowed (In the sonnets)
* CrapsackWorld (Sonnet 66)
* DueToTheDead (In "The Phoenix and the Turtle" -- where "turtle" means "turtledove" -- and Sonnet 68)
* GoodOldWays (Sonnet 68)
* HairOfGold (Sonnet 68)
* HoYay (the Sonnets)
* LoveMakesYouEvil (Sonnet 129 -- and '''how''')
* MeaningfulFuneral (In "The Phoenix and the Turtle")
* NoTitle (the sonnets are generally referred to by number or first line)
* RavensAndCrows (In "The Phoenix and the Turtle")
* SomeoneToRememberHimBy (In Sonnet 9, the reason why he should not fear to leave a widow -- she'll have this trope.)
* TheVamp (the "Dark Lady" in the Sonnets)

* MarySue (Magnificently subverted in Sonnet 130)
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