SOURCE: “‘You that way; we this way’: Shakespeare's Endings,” in Mirror up to Shakespeare, edited by J. C. Gray, pp. 44-54, University of Toronto Press, 1984.

In this essay, Craik considers the manner in which Shakespeare employs stage directions and concluding couplets to achieve a sense of finality at the conclusion of a play's performance. Craik is particularly concerned here with the tragedies and the histories, but he also calls attention to the formal and informal epilogues of some of the comedies.

This essay is concerned rather with the manner in which Shakespeare concludes a play's performance than with the manner in which he handles its dénouement, though it is not easy (or desirable) to consider these two aspects of dramatic technique separately. In both of them Shakespeare shows himself to be both artist and craftsman, aware of the final impression that he wants his play to make...