- All's Well That Ends Well
- Antony and Cleopatra
- As You Like It
- The Comedy of Errors
- Coriolanus
- Cymbeline
- Hamlet
- Henry IV, Part 1
- Henry IV, Part 2
- Henry V
- Henry VI, Part 1
- Henry VI, Part 2
- Henry VI, Part 3
- Henry VIII
- Julius Caesar
- King John
- King Lear
- Love's Labor's Lost
- A Lover's Complaint
- Macbeth
- Measure for Measure
- The Merchant of Venice
- The Merry Wives of Windsor
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Othello
- Pericles
- The Rape of Lucrece
- Richard II
- Richard III
- Romeo and Juliet
- Shakespeare's Sonnets
- The Taming of the Shrew
- The Tempest
- Timon of Athens
- Titus Andronicus
- Troilus and Cressida
- Twelfth Night
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- Venus and Adonis
- The Winter's Tale
In the Prologue, the narrator's friend gives him some advice: he should include poems in his manuscript, cite Latin and Greek adages, and mention famous names and places. The friend then goes on to explain that the narrator should simply imitate and mock chivalrous novels.
The unnamed friend, here, speaks in circles, giving contradictory and confusing advice. His final suggestion undermines the previous ones—while this moment provides comic relief, it also raises questions about literary legitimacy and authority. Why does Cervantes create so many frame stories and digressions? Is he mocking the ways that readers and critics assign value and…