Talk:Shakespearean history

Merger
The article The War of the Roses (Shakespeare) was nominated for deletion. The debate was closed on 2006-10-10 with a consensus to merge the content into :. The merger was completed by AndyJones 20:21, 10 October 2006 (UTC)]].

Eliminate redirect?
His may be the most famous, but Shakespeare was not the only dramatist to write significant chronicle history plays. If there are no objections, I would like to eliminate the redirect, and move "History play" to "English history play" or "Chronicle history play" or some such. Jlittlet 03:03, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I found your comment a bit hard to follow, but if you mean that you want to move History play, and then change it into an article instead of a redirect, then I would approve. Maybe the new article should have a prominent link here. AndyJones 12:19, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that's basically what I meant. Sorry for the vague phrasing; my thought was basically just to make a page that would outline the various types of history plays and provide some context for Shakespeare and for others. I wasn't sure if it would be wiser to put this information at "history play" or at some other page. Jlittlet 18:48, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Misleading title
The title of this page suggests it's a history of something. I think we should rename it Shakespeare's histories to make it clear the article is about the histories he wrote, and not about him or his times. —MiguelMunoz (talk) 21:58, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

This article's title is misleading to a casual observer. As the article is written now, it might more clearly be titled "Shakespeare's Histories" or "Shakesperean Histories." The opening sentence and paragraph suggests the article may outline a general history of Shakespeare's plays, with categorical distinctions. But this article appears to be more narrowly about just Shakespeare's histories. The article is not about "The history of Shakespeare." Nor is the article a general timeline and list of all of Shakespeare's plays. If it were, it would probably be more like the "First Folio" article that already exists. Onemoreoption (talk) 04:08, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi, it's been a decade since this talk thread was last updated, but I believe I've resolved this issue by adding an about template that links to a history of Shakespeare criticism. I hope that clears things up, and as long as things are cleared up I see no reason why "Shakespearean history" isn't an appropriate title Marisauna (talk) 01:42, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

Three categories, not five
Until recently, the lead read: "In the First Folio, the plays of William Shakespeare were grouped into three categories: comedies, histories, and tragedies. This categorisation has become established, although some critics have argued for other categories such as romances and problem plays."

An anon IP changed the "three" to "five", and added "romances and roman". This is clearly incorrect. As the very next sentence explains, "romances" is a later (post-First Folio) category, and as the rest of the article explains, the "Roman histories" are counted as tragedies. So, I've reverted the change. --70.36.140.68 (talk) 06:17, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

English (or First Folio) histories, or all historical plays?
The structure of the article is somewhat strange.

If the article is specifically about the English histories (or the First Folio histories, the same list minus Edward III), it shouldn't have a section on the Roman histories. If, on the other hand, it's about the plays included in modern discussions of history in Shakespeare, then King Lear and Macbeth should be featured as strongly as the Romans, not in an off-hand comment in the Roman section. The lead paragraph makes clear the difference between the two definitions, so I think it makes sense to add a section on the two "Other histories". --70.36.140.68 (talk) 06:17, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Although most of the text refers to Macbeth and King Lear in that order, it seemed more fitting to place them in chronological order of the action, as with the English and Roman histories, so I put Lear first. --70.36.140.68 (talk) 06:22, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

One last question to raise: Hamlet is to some extent a historical play, and is mentioned in the article. On the other hand, despite being about the affairs of royals, Hamlet is a much more private and personal play than the actual English and Roman histories, or even Macbeth (as the article points out). Since I don't know whether it's better to add or not, I'm erring on the conservative side and leaving it out. --70.36.140.68 (talk) 06:28, 24 June 2012 (UTC)