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This article presents an estimated chronological listing of the plays of William Shakespeare.
Overview
Difficulty of creating a chronology
The precise chronology of Shakespeare's plays as they were first written and performed is impossible to determine, since no authoritative chronological record survives and many of the plays were performed years before they were published.
Several of the plays appeared first in pirated editions, and about half of Shakespeare's plays remained unpublished until the First Folio (1623). Two plays mentioned as Shakespeare's by his contemporaries have not survived, Cardenio and Love's Labour's Won, and his exact role in writing other existing plays is not known and is still debated.
Shakespeare scholars beginning with Edmond Malone have reconstructed the plays' relative chronology by various means, including contemporary allusions and records of performance, entries in the Stationers' Register, dates of publication as reflected on the title pages of individual plays, visceral impressions and computer studies of the development of the playwright's writing style over time, and (particularly) a 1598 list of many of Shakespeare's plays then extant by Francis Meres.
Dissenting viewpoints
While most scholars have adopted a generally accepted order[citation needed] (see below), many dates continue to be debated and all dates should be taken as highly speculative. A number of orthodox scholars, as well as many anti-Stratfordian researchers (so called because they argue that someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was the author of the Shakespearean canon), disagree with the conventional dating (dissenting view: Chronology of Shakespeare's plays – Oxfordian). Also see Shakespeare authorship question.
Dates in the following lists are estimates. (Dates in parentheses indicate the date of first publication.)
Shakespeare's plays
- 1590 (1623) Henry VI, Part I
- Stationers' Register on 25 February 1598.
- 1590 (1594) Henry VI, Part II
- 1590 (1595) Henry VI, Part III
- Parodied by Robert Greene in 1592.
- 1592 (1602) Richard III
- In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays.
- 1592 (1623) The Comedy of Errors
- If this is the same as the play titled "The Night of Errors", it was performed on 28 December 1594. Probably the "errors" in Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays.
- 1593 (1594) Titus Andronicus
- According to the first published edition it was performed by a company that folded in early 1593. In 1594 Philip Henslowe referred to it as a "new" play. In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays.
- 1593 (1594) Taming of the Shrew
- 1594 (1623) The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays. The work may have been based on Bartholomew Yong's translation of Jorge de Montemayor's Diana, which was done in 1583 but not published until 1598.
- 1594 (1598) Love's Labour's Lost
- In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays.
- 1591-1596 (1597) Romeo and Juliet
- In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays.
- 1595 (1597) Richard II
- In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays.
- 1595 (1600) A Midsummer Night's Dream
- In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays.
- 1596 (1622) King John
- In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays.
- 1596 (1600) The Merchant of Venice
- Recorded at Stationers' Register on 22 July 1598. In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays.
- 1597 Henry IV, Part I
- In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays.
- 1594-1597 (1603?) Love's Labour's Won
- In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays. In Christopher Hunt's August 1603 booklist. A lost play, though some scholars think it might simply be an alternative name for another of the plays, such as As You Like It, Much Ado, or All's Well That Ends Well.[1]
- 1598 (1600) Henry IV, Part II
- 1599 (1600) Henry V
- Chorus expresses hope for the Earl of Essex's Irish expedition of 1599.
- 1599 (1623) Julius Caesar
- Mentioned by Thomas Platter the Younger in 1599.
- 1599 (1600) Much Ado About Nothing
- 1599 (1623) As You Like It
- Stationers' Register in August 1600
- 1597-1600 (1602) The Merry Wives of Windsor
- 1599-1600 (1603) Hamlet
- Stationers' Register in July 1602 describes it as “lately acted.” Some scholars, such as Peter Alexander and Eric Sams, believe that the oft-attributed source work known as the Ur-Hamlet was actually a first draft of the play, written by Shakespeare himself sometime prior to 1589.[2]
- 1602 (1623) Twelfth Night
- 1602 (1609) Troilus and Cressida
- Stationers' Register in February 1603.
- 1603 (1623) All's Well That Ends Well
- No contemporary reference.
- 1603 (1622) Othello
- Performed November 1604.
- 1603-06 (1608) King Lear
- Stationers' Register in November 1607.
- 1603-06 (1623) Macbeth
- 1603 (1623) Measure For Measure
- Court records show it was performed December 1604.
- 1606 (1623) Antony and Cleopatra
- Stationers' Register in May 1608.
- 1607 (1623) Coriolanus
- 1607 (1623) Timon of Athens (probably revised by Thomas Middleton)
- 1608 (1609) Pericles (probably revised by George Wilkins)
- Stationers' Register in May 1608.
- 1609 (1623) Cymbeline
- 1594-1610 (1623) The Winter's Tale [3]
- 1611 (1623) The Tempest
Other plays
Possible collaborations
Misattributions
The following plays have been attributed to Shakespeare but are in fact of different or uncertain authorship:
References
- ^ The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works
- ^ * Bloom, Harold, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. New York, 1998.
- ^ Shaksperian Scraps, chapter: "The Forman Notes" (1933). Tannenbaum reports that "Malone had at first decided that it was written in 1594; subsequently he seems to have assigned it to 1604; later still, to 1613; and finally he settled on 1610–11. Hunter assigned it to about 1605."
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