V. THE DRAMA
N.B.—Some cross-classification is unavoidable in this table.
| Date | Tragedy | Comedy | Historical and Pastoral |
| 1500 | |||
| Ralph Roister Doister | |||
| Gorboduc | |||
| Kyd | The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth | ||
| Marlowe | J. Heywood | ||
| Greene | Lyly | ||
| 1600 | Nash | Shakespeare | Shakespeare |
| Shakespeare | Jonson | Jonson | |
| Jonson | Massinger | Fletcher | |
| Webster | |||
| Ford | |||
| Milton | Dryden | ||
| Dryden | |||
| 1700 | Lee | Congreve | |
| Addison | Steele | ||
| Johnson | |||
| Goldsmith | Home | ||
| Sheridan | |||
| 1800 | Baillie | ||
| Byron | Byron | ||
| Shelley | |||
| Browning | |||
| Swinburne | |||
| Tennyson | Wilde | Tennyson | |
| 1900 | G. B. Shaw | Swinburne |