Are The “last Plays” Very Different From The Rest Of Shakespeare’s Work?

The plays usually called the last aren't necessarily the last that Shakespeare ever wrote, but the group of plays usually given this name do share certain characteristics. They are "Pericles, Prince of Tyre" (1609, possibly written with some collaboration), "Cymbeline," (1610), "The Winter's Tale" and "The Tempest", both performed in 1611.
All these plays have reunion and reconciliation as main themes. In each one, long- lost family members are reunited, people thought to be dead are discovered to be alive, old grudges are forgotten and crimes forgiven.
In "The Winter's Tale", for example, the jealous King Leontes rejects his infant daughter, claiming that she is another man's. The child, Perdita, is left to die, and her mother, Hermione, apparently dies of grief. Sixteen years later it is revealed that both Perdita and Hermione are alive, the family is reunited and Leontes, who has done penance for sixteen years, is forgiven. Similar events occur in the other "last plays."

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