Defining Shakespeare’s plays as ‘Romance plays’ is
a relatively new affair. Shakespeare’s plays have traditionally
been classified as ‘tragedies,’ ‘histories’ or ‘comedies’ but as
time went by and scholars began to regard him as the greatest
English writer of all times, his plays were studied more
carefully by academics, researchers and critics. It became
difficult to accept the old categories because many of the plays
refused to fit into those categories, so they began to be
described in different ways.  As Shakespeare approached the end
of his career he became more interested in some of the ideas
that he had touched on in the earlier plays. They were themes
like the redeeming qualities of nature as opposed to the corrupt
staleness of city and court life; the regeneration that the
younger generation represented; and encounters with spiritual
experiences. Instead of flawed characters dying as a result of
their deficiencies, as we find in the more Aristotelian models
like Macbeth, they could be redeemed by a d