How Many Tragedies Did William Shakespeare Write?

Today I will introduce to you 10 tragedies written by William Shakespeare.

Tragedy: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth; Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra La, Coriolanus, and Timon of Athens, the first four are the four most famous tragedies. 

Tragedy generally refers to a bad ending. The ups and downs of the storyline arouse the audience's grief and sadness. Tragedy is also a subject that many people like. 

Let's take a look at the top 10 tragedies by William Shakespeare.

William Shakespeare was born in England. He was a playwright during the English Renaissance and had a very special position in the history of European literature. Marx called him "the greatest dramatic genius of mankind", and Engels also liked his plays very much.

William Shakespeare is the most outstanding dramatist in the history of English literature and one of the most important and greatest writers of the European Renaissance. 

Do you know what are the representative works of Shakespeare? What are his main tragedies? How many plays did Shakespeare write?

1. Hamlet

Prince Hamlet of Denmark suddenly received the news of his father's death. When he returned home for the funeral, he found that his uncle Claudius had ascended the throne, and his mother had married his uncle Claudius within a month of his father's funeral. This made Hamlet unacceptable, and he was full of doubts and dissatisfaction.

One day when Hamlet's friend Horatio and the military officer Bernardo are standing guard at night, the ghost of Hamlet's father, the old king, appears. Horatio secretly told Hamlet about it, and Hamlet went to the place where they saw the ghost at night, and he saw it. 

The ghost of his father, his father told him that he was poisoned to death by his uncle Claudius when he was taking a nap, and told Hamlet about his mother's adultery with Claudius, asking Hamlet to avenge him.

In order to get revenge, Hamlet begins to pretend to be crazy and uses "a play within a play" to prove that his uncle is indeed the murderer of his father and enemy. 

In order to test Hamlet, King Claudius asks Polonius (the father of Hamlet's beloved Ophelia) to hide behind the scenes and eavesdrop on Hamlet and his mother's speech. 

Ness killed him and then buried his body alone, and Ophelia committed suicide. Polonius' son, Leotis, is very cruel to Hamlet and vows to avenge his father and sister's death.

Claudius takes advantage of Laertes' hatred and proposes that he fight Hamlet and then kill Hamlet. During the duel, Hamlet's mother, Gertrude, is poisoned to death by mistakenly drinking the poisoned wine that Claudius had prepared for Hamlet. After Claudius died, he entrusted his friend Horatio to tell his story to future generations.

2. Othello

Othello, a black-faced Moorish aristocrat, is a general hired by the city-state of Venice, and his status is humble due to racial restrictions. He and Desdemona, the smart, beautiful, and generous daughter of the noble elder Brobancio, admired each other. They knew that their marriage would not be promised, but they still married in secret without telling Desdemona's father.

Othello has a loyal banner officer, Iago, who is jealous of Othello's promotion of Cassio as lieutenant general but not himself, and he covets Desdemona's beauty, so he is jealous of Othello's success in marrying his wife. 

The villain Iago, who is honest in appearance but cunning in heart, tries every means to make Othello mistakenly believe that Cassio and his wife Desdemona had an affair and evidence so that the jealousy caused by Iago's framed words Bewildered Othello saw. Destroying the happy marriage of Othello and Desdemona has become Iago's greatest satisfaction.

Iago tries his best to make use of the little nobleman Rodrigo who had a crush on Desdemona and his wife Emilia to convince Othello of the "evidence" of Desdemona's infidelity, and the seeds of doubt germinated and grew. 

In the end, Othello is convinced that his wife had an affair with Cassio, and in the end, he almost goes mad with jealousy and finally strangles his faithful and innocent wife Desdemona to death on the newly married bed. Desdemona and Iago's wife Emilia had a very good relationship. 

After Desdemona died, Emilia fully understood Yin Agu's conspiracy and exposed his lies and deceptions in public. Othello was like a dream. Woke up early, but it was too late, and then drew his sword beside Desdemona's body and killed himself.

3. King Lear

In ancient times, King Lear of Britain was old and faint, and he wanted to distribute the land to his three daughters according to their degree of love for him. 

The eldest daughter, Gonaril, and the second daughter, Reagan, coaxed King Lear with sweet words, but the youngest daughter, Cordelia, told the truth, saying, "I am a clumsy person, and I will not pour my heart out of my mouth." Li; I love you just according to my title, no more, no less." 

King Lear was very angry after hearing this, and directly let his younger daughter marry far away to France without any dowry, and divided the land equally between the hypocritical eldest daughter and second daughter.

Later, King Lear planned to live with the eldest daughter first, and then with the second daughter. As a result, he was rejected by the two daughters and wanted to remove his servants. King Lear regretted it after seeing the faces of the two daughters. 

Angry, he ran aimlessly into the wilderness of the storm, and with the mad Edgar (Edgar is the eldest son of the Earl of Gloucester, because his father listened to the slander of the bastard Edmund, exiled him, there are everywhere. 

The person who chased him down, so in order to survive, he had to disguise himself as a crazy beggar.) For company. Because Gloucester sympathized with King Lear, he went to the wilderness to meet him and planned to resettle him. 

Edmund planned to use the hands of King Lear's daughters and sons-in-law to gouge out Gloucester's eyes and drive him out of the house. 

While wandering in the wild, he met his son Edgar, who became a beggar, and he helped him move forward, but he didn't know that the one who helped him was his son who was kicked out of the house.

The youngest daughter of King Lear gathered an army from France to fight against her father after knowing what had happened to her father. 

The father and daughter met each other, but in the battle between the two armies, the French army was defeated, Cordelia was captured, and was soon hanged by Edmund's secret order. Lear hugged her body and died madly in grief.

After Edmond inherited the title, he hooked up with King Lear's eldest daughter and second daughter, causing them to be jealous and kill each other. 

In the end, the second daughter was poisoned to death, and the eldest daughter committed suicide after her plot to murder her husband was revealed. Edmund was challenged by Edgar and killed in a duel.

4. Macbeth

General Macbeth of Duncan, King of Scotland, has very strong military capabilities and has made many contributions to the country's counter-insurgency and defense against invasion. On the way back from a defense against invasion, he met three witches. 

The witch told Macbeth some prophecies, saying that he would succeed Sir Coulter and climb up to become king, but he did not have any heirs to inherit the throne, but the descendants of his colleague Banquo would be king.

Macbeth was originally an ambitious man, but after the king asked him to take over the position of Sir Coulter, he was sure that the prophecy said by the witch would come true and he would become king. 

With the persuasion of his wife and his wife, he murdered King Duncan, put the blame on Duncan's bodyguard, and then became the king as he wished.

After becoming king, Macbeth was worried that what the witch said would continue to come true, so he arranged for an assassin to kill Banquo. He wanted to kill Banquo's son, but the assassin missed and let Banquo's son go.

Fear and suspicion make Macbeth more and more ghostly and ruthless, throwing society into chaos and trapping the people in misery. His wife died of insanity because of her participation in the murder. 

The people became more and more dissatisfied with Macbeth. In the case of desertion, the son of Duncan and the English reinforcements he invited besieged Scotland and killed Macbeth.

5. Titus Andronicus

When the Roman general Titus Andronicus was conquering the Goths, he took the Gothic queen Tamora, mother and child, back to Rome as hostages, and was indifferent to Tamora's pleas, cruelly Killed her eldest son unexpectedly, the seed of revenge was planted in Tamora's heart at this time. 

Titus handed over the imperial power to Saturninus, and at the same time handed over the captured Tamora mother and child to him. Saturninus loved Tamora and made her the queen of Rome. The disaster of the Si family planted the seeds of disaster.

After Tamora became the queen, she began to look for opportunities to drive a wedge between Emperor Saturninas and Titus and tried every means to kill Titus' clan henchmen. 

She colluded with her son and male slave Allen, killed the emperor's younger brother (that is, Titus' daughter's lover Basiannas), and then framed the two sons of Titus, Marcius, and Quintus, After Tamora's two sons gang-raped Titus' daughter, Lavinia, they cut off her arms and her tongue. And Titus himself was fooled by Alan and cut off one of his own hands.

After Titus understood all the plots, he began to pretend to be crazy and plan his revenge plan. His son Lucius fled and gathered the Goths to march against Rome. 

Later, Tamora planned to kill Titus, and Titus took the opportunity to kill Tamora's two sons, grind the bones into powder, and then mix them with blood to make bread, which was served at the banquet. Feed it to Tamora. After they ate, Tet told all the truth at the banquet, and killed his daughter Lavinia with his own hands, because he didn't want her to suffer for a long time. 

Later, Tamora was killed, Saturninus killed Titus, and Lucius killed the emperor again. The four bloody corpses were put together, the injustice was avenged, and revenge was vented.

6. Romeo and Juliet

Romeo's house (Montague) and Juliet's house (Capulet) have feuded for generations, and fights occur from time to time. One day, Romeo sneaked into the banquet held by Juliet's house. At this banquet, he and Juliet were deeply attracted to each other. 

But neither side knew the identity of the other. After the truth came out, Romeo still couldn't forget Juliet. So he sneaked over the wall and entered Capulet's orchard, wanting to take a look at Juliet, just in time to hear Juliet calling Romeo involuntarily from the window. 

Obviously, they are happy with each other, and private life. (Drama is drama, and it develops so fast)

The day after seeing Juliet, Romeo went to see the priest of the monastery and asked him to help preside over the wedding between him and Juliet. The priest agreed to Romeo's request, thinking that this was a way to resolve the conflict between the two families. 

Romeo invites Juliet to the monastery through Juliet's nurse and they are married. After Juliet returned to her home, something unfortunate happened on the other side. Romeo meets Juliet's cousin Tybalt on the street. 

After the quarrel between the two sides, Tybalt wanted to fight Romeo, but Romeo refused However, his friends felt that Romeo had lost face, so he dueled with Tybalt and was killed by Tybalt. Romeo was furious, drew his sword to avenge his friend, and killed Tybalt.

After the incident got worse, the ruler decided to expel Romeo and ordered him to be executed if he dared to come back. Juliet is very sad, she loves Romeo very much. 

Romeo is unwilling to leave, and he agrees to leave temporarily after the priest persuades him. That night, he sneaked into Juliet's bedroom and spent their wedding night. 

At dawn the next day, Romeo had to start his life in exile. No sooner had Romeo left than the noble Paris came to propose again. Satisfied, Capulet orders Juliet to marry him as soon as possible.

Juliet went to the priest to find a way, and the priest gave her medicine, which seemed to be dead after taking it but would wake up after forty-two hours. 

The priest promised to send someone to tell Romeo that he would soon dig the tomb and get her out so that she could fly away by feigning death and Romeo.

The night before the wedding, Juliet took the medicine according to the priest's request. After the next day's wedding, when everyone found out that she was dead, they directly changed to a funeral to bury her. 

However, the person sent by the priest to inform Romeo of the plan was detained by soldiers in the city and did not pass on the plan to Romeo. Romeo thought that Juliet was really dead, so he rushed back after bringing a bottle of poison and came to Juliet in the middle of the night. 

He killed Paris who blocked him, dug the tomb, kissed Juliet, took out the poison he brought with him, drank it, and fell beside Juliet to die. When the priest arrived, Romeo and Paris were already dead. 

At this time, Juliet also woke up. There were more and more people, and the priest ran away before he could take care of Juliet. When Juliet saw the dead Romeo, she didn't want to live alone. She didn't find the poison, so she pulled out Romeo's sword and stabbed herself, fell on Romeo, and died.

Both parents came, and the priest told them the story of Romeo and Juliet after being arrested. After losing their children, the parents of the two families came to their senses, but it was too late. From then on, the two families eliminated their grudges and cast a golden statue for Romeo and Juliet in the city.

7. Julius Caesar

Caesar, who had already monopolized the power, half-pushed some followers to support him as the "Emperor" at a celebration ceremony. After seeing this, consul Cassius, who thought he had seen through Caesar's mind, was very angry and dissatisfied. 

In order to prevent the emergence of a "dictator", he persuaded the upright and popular chief consul Brutus to form an alliance with him and united with some other nobles to resist Caesar's dictatorship. 

Although Brutus was a friend of Caesar and was supported by him, he resolutely served as the leader of the "rebel party" in order to defend the ideals of the Roman Republic and freedom.

Consul Cassius is an ambitious and shrewd person. He clearly knows that Brutus' prestige is needed to launch a coup, so he obeys Brutus' command. After Brutus stabbed Caesar to death, he released Caesar's confidant, General Anthony, graciously. 

Regardless of the opposition of his party, he let Antony give a mourning speech to the public next to Caesar's body.

Taking advantage of the opportunity of his speech, Anthony skillfully diverted the public's dissatisfaction from Caesar to Brutus and other "rebels". Destroyed, he committed suicide by wearing a sword.

8. Antony and Cleopatra

Anthony was one of the three chiefs of Rome. He was obsessed with the beauty of Queen Cleopatra of Egypt and had no time for state affairs. He stayed by her side in Egypt all day long. 

Later, Rome suffered the rebellion of Sextus Pompey, the invasion of pirates, the invasion of Eastern Parthians, and the news that Antony's wife died because of failing to challenge Caesar. Rome is ready to serve your country. 

Due to the situation, Antony needed to reconcile with Caesar and marry his sister to strengthen their political relationship. This also made Cleopatra sad and angry. After the reconciliation of the war subsided, Anthony couldn't wait to return to the Queen of Egypt. 

Later, Pompey was killed and his colleague Lepidus was deposed, which led to the final confrontation between Antony and Caesar. In the battle at sea, Antony followed the Egyptian queen unwisely was defeated, and finally committed suicide. Cleopatra finally saw Caesar's true face and committed suicide.

9. Coriolanus

Marcius (later known as Coriolanus for his meritorious service in capturing Coriolis) was a hero of the Roman Republic. Later, he offended the masses because of his violent temper refused to bow his head, and became the hero of Rome. enemy and was banished. 

For this reason, he hated the Romans very much. In order to get revenge, he turned to the enemy of Rome, the Vols, and led his troops to besiege Rome. The situation in Rome is critical. Coriolanus' mother advised Coriolanus to give up attacking Rome in order to prevent his son from making a big mistake. 

Coriolanus listened to his mother's advice and gave up attacking Rome, but his behavior betrayed the Volsians again and was finally killed by the Volsians during the war.

10. Timon of Athens

Timon, an aristocrat in Athens, was very wealthy, generous, and generous to his friends. So he gathered a group of flattering "friends" around him. to benefit from it. Because of his generosity, Timon soon lost his fortune and was heavily in debt. 

Those "friends" who benefited from him immediately cut off contact with him, and the creditors ruthlessly forced him to repay the debt. When Timon discovers the ingratitude and greed of his "friends", he becomes cynical. He decided to hold another banquet, inviting past regulars and celebrities. 

These people mistakenly thought that Timon was pretending to be poor to test their loyalty, so they flocked to him and greeted Timon with hypocrisy. Timon lifted the lid, poured the hot water from the plate over the faces and bodies of the guests, and gave them a swearing word. 

From then on, Timon left the city he could no longer bear, hid in a desolate cave, fed on tree roots, and lived a life like a beast. One day he found a pile of gold while digging a tree root, and he distributed the gold to passing beggars, prostitutes, and thieves. 

In his opinion, a hypocritical "friend" is worse than a thief, and he viciously curses people and gold, and finally dies alone in despair.