Shakespeare wrote ten plays that are usually counted as tragedies, from Titus Andronicus in the early 1590s to Coriolanus around 1608, and many lists add an eleventh, Troilus and Cressida. Four of them, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, are known as the great tragedies.
The number depends on who is counting. The First Folio of 1623, the first collected edition of his plays, printed twelve plays in its tragedies section, including one that ends in reconciliation. This guide lists every play usually counted as a tragedy, in the order they were written, explains which plays sit on the border and why, and sets out what the tragedies have in common. For all of Shakespeare’s plays grouped by type, see the Plays hub.
At a Glance
Here are the key facts about Shakespeare’s tragedies for quick reference.
How Many Tragedies Did Shakespeare Write?
Most modern lists give ten or eleven. The ten that appear on nearly every list are Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Timon of Athens, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus. The eleventh, Troilus and Cressida, is included by some editors and left out by others, because its title characters do not die and its tone swings between bitter comedy and gloom.
The division of Shakespeare’s plays into comedies, histories, and tragedies comes from the First Folio, published in 1623, seven years after his death, and put together by two of his fellow actors, John Heminges and Henry Condell. Its tragedies section begins with Coriolanus and ends with Cymbeline, a play that closes in reunion and forgiveness and is now usually grouped with the late romances. Troilus and Cressida was added to the volume so late that it does not appear in the Folio’s table of contents, and it was printed between the last of the histories and the first of the tragedies. Our list follows the modern consensus rather than the Folio, which is why it has eleven plays and not twelve.
The Complete List, in Order
The dates below are approximate, since few of the plays can be dated exactly. Where a play has a full guide on this site, its title links to it.
Titus Andronicus (about 1592)
A Roman general returns from war against the Goths and is drawn into a cycle of revenge with their captive queen, Tamora. It is Shakespeare’s first tragedy and often called his most violent play, written in the style of the revenge tragedies that were popular on the London stage in the early 1590s. Scholars widely accept that George Peele wrote part of it, probably including the opening act.
Romeo and Juliet (about 1595)
Two young people from feuding families in Verona fall in love, marry in secret, and die within a few days. Written in the same years as some of his early comedies, it borrows much of their language and energy, and for its first half it could pass for one.
Julius Caesar (1599)
Brutus and Cassius lead the conspiracy to assassinate Caesar, and Mark Antony’s funeral speech turns Rome against them. It is one of the few plays that can be dated closely: a Swiss visitor, Thomas Platter, recorded seeing a play about Julius Caesar across the Thames on September 21, 1599, very probably at the newly built Globe. Caesar dies halfway through, and the tragedy that follows is Brutus’s.
Hamlet (about 1600)
The ghost of the old king of Denmark tells his son that he was murdered by his brother, Claudius, who now wears the crown and has married the widowed queen. Hamlet’s delay in taking revenge is the engine of the play. It is Shakespeare’s longest play, and its soliloquies are among the most quoted speeches in English. Our guide to Hamlet’s soliloquies takes them one by one.
Troilus and Cressida (about 1602)
During the Trojan War, the Trojan prince Troilus and Cressida become lovers, but she is handed over to the Greeks in an exchange of prisoners and turns to the Greek warrior Diomedes. Neither lover dies. The play ends instead with the killing of Hector by Achilles’s men and a bitter epilogue. Its place on the list is disputed, and it is often grouped with the “problem plays” instead.
Othello (about 1604)
Othello, a Moorish general in the service of Venice, is persuaded by his ensign, Iago, that his wife, Desdemona, has been unfaithful, and he kills her. It is often called the most domestic of the great tragedies, played out in a single household on Cyprus, and it is driven less by fate or politics than by one man’s lies.
King Lear (about 1605)
An old king divides his kingdom between the two daughters who flatter him and disowns the one who will not. A second plot follows the Earl of Gloucester and his two sons, one loyal and one treacherous. It survives in two early versions, a quarto of 1608 and the Folio text of 1623, which differ by hundreds of lines, and many critics consider it the greatest of the tragedies.
Macbeth (about 1606)
A Scottish general hears a prophecy from three witches that he will be king, murders King Duncan with his wife’s encouragement, and holds the throne by further killing. It is the shortest of the tragedies, and it moves at great speed. Our guide to Macbeth’s soliloquies follows his mind through the play.
Timon of Athens (about 1606)
A rich Athenian gives his money away to friends and flatterers, is abandoned by his friends when it runs out, and withdraws to the wilderness to curse humankind. It was written with Thomas Middleton, and many scholars think it was never finished. The Folio titles it The Life of Timon of Athens, and it is rarely performed.
Antony and Cleopatra (about 1606)
Mark Antony, one of the three men who rule the Roman world, neglects Rome for Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, and loses everything to Octavius Caesar. Both lovers take their own lives. The play ranges across the Mediterranean in dozens of short scenes, and its poetry is among the richest Shakespeare wrote.
Coriolanus (about 1608)
A proud Roman soldier who despises the common people is banished from Rome, joins its enemies, and marches on the city, until his mother persuades him to spare it. He is then killed by the allies he has betrayed. It is Shakespeare’s last tragedy, and it is often considered his most political.
The Four Great Tragedies
Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth were written within about six years, roughly between 1600 and 1606, while Shakespeare was writing for the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, the company that became the King’s Men after James I came to the throne in 1603. They are often called the four great tragedies, a grouping made famous by the critic A. C. Bradley, whose lectures on the four plays were published as Shakespearean Tragedy in 1904. Bradley’s own phrase was more modest: he called them the “four principal tragedies.” The word “great” is a verdict, not a technical term. It reflects the judgment of critics, actors, and teachers over more than a century that these plays show Shakespeare at the height of his powers.
The four plays have little in common on the surface: a Danish court, a Venetian household on Cyprus, an ancient British kingdom, and medieval Scotland. What they share is a hero whose mind is the center of the play, and in each a single discovery or decision sets off the catastrophe: the ghost’s story, Iago’s lies, the division of the kingdom, and the murder of Duncan. They are also the plays most often set for study, which is one reason the rest of the list is less familiar.
The Roman Tragedies
Three of the tragedies, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus, dramatize events from Roman history, and all three draw on Plutarch’s Lives, which Shakespeare read in Thomas North’s English translation. They are usually called the Roman plays or Roman tragedies. Titus Andronicus is also set in Rome, but its story is invented, and it is not normally grouped with them.
The Roman tragedies are more public than the great tragedies. Their heroes are soldiers and statesmen, their crowds speak and change sides, and their catastrophes are political as well as personal. Because they deal with real historical figures, they have much in common with Shakespeare’s English histories, and the line between the two groups is thinner than the Folio’s categories suggest.
What Shakespeare’s Tragedies Have in Common
The most reliable feature of the tragedies is their ending. With the exception of Troilus and Cressida, each ends in the death of its central figure, or figures, and usually of many people around them. The heroes are people of high rank, generals, princes, and kings, so their fall brings down a household or a state with them. A new ruler or survivor is usually left on stage at the end to restore order and speak over the bodies.
Beyond that, the plays are more varied than any formula allows. They often mix comedy into the darkest scenes, as with the gravediggers in Hamlet, the Porter in Macbeth, and the Fool in King Lear. Some are driven by a villain, some by a mistake, some by prophecy or chance, and some by a hero’s own choices. The idea that every Shakespearean hero has a single “tragic flaw” is a later simplification. It is often traced to Aristotle’s term hamartia, which is closer in meaning to an error or a mistake than to a flaw of character, and it fits some of the plays far better than others.
Which Tragedy to Read First
For a first tragedy, Macbeth is the easiest place to start. It is short, its plot is simple, and it moves quickly from the witches’ prophecy to the end. Romeo and Juliet is probably the most familiar story and the lightest in tone for much of its length. Julius Caesar is also short and clear, and it has long been a common school text.
Hamlet and King Lear reward readers who already know one or two of the plays. Hamlet is long and full of digressions, and King Lear runs two plots side by side and is the bleakest of the tragedies. Othello sits in between: it is tightly focused on a handful of characters, and it is the easiest of the great tragedies to follow on stage.
A Closer Reading: Tragedy or History?
Every list of Shakespeare’s tragedies, including this one, rests on a decision that Shakespeare did not make. The categories of comedy, history, and tragedy were fixed in 1623 by the makers of the First Folio, seven years after his death. The title pages printed in his lifetime show that the labels were looser than the Folio makes them look.
Consider three plays. The first quarto of King Lear, printed in 1608, calls it Shakespeare’s “True Chronicle Historie of the life and death of King Lear and his three Daughters.” The Folio calls it The Tragedie of King Lear and places it among the tragedies. The 1609 quarto of Troilus and Cressida calls it a “Historie,” while the Folio heads it The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida. Hamlet first appeared in 1603 as The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, a title that claims both labels at once.
The traffic ran the other way too. Richard II and Richard III were first printed in 1597 as tragedies, The Tragedie of King Richard the second and The Tragedy of King Richard the third, but the Folio placed both among the histories. Even inside the Folio, the labels do not line up: Timon of Athens sits among the tragedies under the title The Life of Timon of Athens, Richard III keeps the word “tragedy” in its title while sitting among the histories, and Cymbeline, which ends in reconciliation, is called The Tragedie of Cymbeline.
What these title pages suggest is that, for Shakespeare’s first readers, “history” and “tragedy” were not rival genres but overlapping descriptions. A history told the story of a life, often a king’s, and a tragedy told the story of a fall. A play about the life and death of a king could be both, and its title page could use either word. The Folio’s editors had to put each play in one section, and some of their choices have been argued over ever since.
That is why the ending is the safest test. What makes King Lear a tragedy is not that it fits a formula but that it ends in the death of the king and his daughter, with the survivors facing what is left. By that measure Richard III and Richard II have as good a claim as Timon, and Cymbeline has none. The list of Shakespeare’s tragedies is less a fact about the plays than a history of how readers have sorted them, beginning with two actors assembling their friend’s work for the press.
Common Questions
The questions readers ask most often about Shakespeare’s tragedies, answered briefly.
How Many Tragedies Did Shakespeare Write?
Ten, or eleven if Troilus and Cressida is included. The First Folio of 1623 printed twelve plays as tragedies, but one of them, Cymbeline, is now usually classed as a romance.
What Are Shakespeare’s Four Great Tragedies?
Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, all written between about 1600 and 1606. They are called great because critics have long ranked them as his finest plays: they were written close together at the height of his career, and each builds the whole play around the inner life of its hero. The grouping was made famous by A. C. Bradley, whose 1904 lectures on them called them Shakespeare’s “four principal tragedies.”
What Was Shakespeare’s First Tragedy?
Titus Andronicus, written around 1592, probably with George Peele. Romeo and Juliet followed a few years later.
What Was Shakespeare’s Last Tragedy?
Coriolanus, written around 1608. In the years that followed, he wrote mainly the late romances, including The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest.
Is Romeo and Juliet a Tragedy?
Yes. It was printed as a tragedy in Shakespeare’s lifetime and placed among the tragedies in the First Folio. It shares much of its style with his early comedies, but it ends in the deaths of both lovers.
What Is the Tragic Flaw in Shakespeare?
The idea that each tragic hero is undone by a single flaw of character, such as Macbeth’s ambition or Othello’s jealousy, is a common way of teaching the plays, but it is a simplification. Shakespeare did not write to that formula, and many of the tragedies turn as much on villainy, chance, or error as on a hero’s character.
Start With the Great Tragedies
Three full guides to the tragedies most often read and taught.