Macbeth is Shakespeare’s shortest, most visceral and most disturbing tragedy. It was written in or about 1606, during the reign of King James I (VI of Scotland) and prudently places the current monarch as one of the line of good and justified kings deriving from Banquo, which is what the Stuart house itself to which James belonged also claimed.
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The play Troilus and Cressida is called a tragedy by Shakespeare but it has become common to class it as one of the three ‘problem plays,’ together with All’s Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure. This is because the principal characters do not suffer the kind of tragic outcome consistent with the Greek concept that Shakespeare generally followed and neither do they pass through any great epiphany-like moment of learning and change.
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