From 1589 until 1613, William Shakespeare wrote 37* plays, with word counts ranging from 14.7 thousand words, to 30.6 thousand. This data includes all words written in the play, such as stage directions and descriptions, and not just dialogue. From the graph we can see that Shakespeare's tragedies tend to be the longest of his works, as six of his eight longest works are in this genre, while the other two are histories.
The shortest of Shakespeare's works are his comedies, although there are also some tragedies, such as Macbeth, that have relatively low word counts. The longest play is Hamlet, which is the only Shakespeare play with more than thirty thousand words, and the shortest is The Comedy of Errors, which is the only play with fewer than fifteen thousand words. Shakespeare's 37 plays have an average word count of 22.6 thousand words per play.
Total number of words written in each William Shakespeare play
* The Two Noble Kinsmen, which is not included in this graph but is becoming increasingly accepted in Shakespeare's canon of work, has a word count of approximately 24 thousand words.
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Open Source Shakespeare. (October 18, 2019). Total number of words written in each William Shakespeare play [Graph]. In Statista. Retrieved December 30, 2024, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/1061108/word-count-shakespeare-plays/
Open Source Shakespeare. "Total number of words written in each William Shakespeare play." Chart. October 18, 2019. Statista. Accessed December 30, 2024. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1061108/word-count-shakespeare-plays/
Open Source Shakespeare. (2019). Total number of words written in each William Shakespeare play. Statista. Statista Inc.. Accessed: December 30, 2024. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1061108/word-count-shakespeare-plays/
Open Source Shakespeare. "Total Number of Words Written in Each William Shakespeare Play." Statista, Statista Inc., 18 Oct 2019, https://www.statista.com/statistics/1061108/word-count-shakespeare-plays/
Open Source Shakespeare, Total number of words written in each William Shakespeare play Statista, https://www.statista.com/statistics/1061108/word-count-shakespeare-plays/ (last visited December 30, 2024)
Total number of words written in each William Shakespeare play [Graph], Open Source Shakespeare, October 18, 2019. [Online]. Available: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1061108/word-count-shakespeare-plays/