THE grouping together of these three plays is one of the legacies of
Victorian Shakespeare criticism. It is found as early as 1877 in
Dowden's 'Shakespeare Primer', ¹ where he makes them form a
separate group among the Later Comedies. And it would seem,
indeed, that it was Dowden who was chiefly responsible for imposing
it upon the minds of later generations, so that it has become an
almost unquestioned dogma that these three plays are to be classed
and studied together. Dowden distinguished between their pre-
dominant characteristics: they are, he says, 'three comedies, one
earnest [ All's Well], another dark and severe [ Measure for Measure],
the last, bitter and ironical [ Troilus and Cressida]'. Later critics have
devised various blanket terms to cover all three. Raleigh called them
'the later and darker Comedies' ² E. K. Chambers 'the three bitter
and cynical pseudo-comedies' ³ W. W. Lawrence 'the Problem
Comedies' ⁴ Dover Wilson 'the bitter comedies' ⁵ Charlton 'the
Dark Comedies' ⁶ A. P. Rossiter 'the tragi-comedies'. ⁷

Two trends in recent criticism have worked against the continued
acceptance of this grouping: one is the growing recognition that the
Folio compilers were right in placing Troilus and Cressida among the
tragedies ⁸ the other is the increasingly widespread feeling that there
is nothing cynical or bitter or exceptionally dark about All's Well
and Measure for Measure. But if Troilus and Cressida is not a comedy,
if All's Well and Measure for Measure are not cynical or bitter or dark,
what remains to justify their being grouped together? Are there,

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