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Dating Shakespeare's Plays: Introduction

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Dating Shakespeare's Plays: Introduction Dating Shakespeare’s Plays: Introduction Dating Shakespeare’s Plays Introduction Kevin Gilvary When did Shakespeare write his plays? a precise date on any particular play is lacking. What follows is a methodical assessment of the here is, apparently, a scholarly consensus range of possible dates for each of the thirty-six about the order in which Shakespeare plays in the First Folio and for four other plays composed his plays and the dates when which have been attributed to Shakespeare. Tthey were written. This ‘scholarly consensus’ or ‘accepted orthodoxy’ can be found in almost What do we mean by the every edition of the Complete Works and in ‘date’ of a play? almost every biography. Yet, close comparison of these dates shows The ‘date’ of a play can refer to three possible some surprising discrepancies: King John has events: when it was composed, when it was first been placed by different scholars in every year performed or when it was first published. It is of the decade up to 1598; Love’s Labour’s Lost is important to make careful distinction within sometimes taken to be the playwright’s earliest the evidence proposed as to which type of date attempt at comedy, and sometimes part of his is indicated. Historically, the tendency among mature period, while Hamlet can be dated to scholars has been to assume that the playwright 1602 only by ignoring allusions which could date produced one definitive or archetypal version of it as early as 1589. each play which was then handed over to the When preparing to date the plays, every acting companies and eventually found its way commentator announces that the primary to publication, either in a quarto or later in the evidence is very fragmentary and that any date collection of works known as the First Folio. is conjectural and reliant on speculation. Such More recently, there has been acceptance that the announcements, however, are soon forgotten playwright may have produced different versions as almost every scholar in turn puts forward a of a play, e.g. King Lear, which would all therefore precise date for a play – not so much because there have authorial status.1 The most recent editors of is evidence to support it, merely because there is Hamlet for the Arden series accept that the three no evidence to contradict the date proposed. versions of this play might also have all originated The Dating of Shakespeare’s Plays is quite from the playwright himself. So, by the ‘date’ different from previous efforts in this field: in this of a play we could be referring to nine different work, the various contributors have challenged possibilities.2 the scholarly consensus by simply identifying the range of dates for each play rather than arguing for a particular date. In considering Oxfordian Date of Composition dates, the intention is not to prove that the Earl of This would be the most important date for many Oxford may or may not have written the works: scholars, but there is no evi-dence for the date of the purpose is to consider whether alternative, composition of any play by Shakespeare. Any such often earlier, dates for the plays are tenable. date offered rests on inferences and arguments that The findings are necessarily inconclusive: as are often dependent on belief and speculation. scholar after scholar has said, the evidence to fix © De Vere Society 1 Dating Shakespeare’s Plays: Introduction Catalogue page from the First Folio, 1623. This catalogue gives no indication of date or chronology, unlike the folio of Jonson’s Works, 1616. © De Vere Society 2 Dating Shakespeare’s Plays: Introduction Date of First Performance several plays listed by Meres in 1598 (e.g. The Two Gentlemen of Verona) were not published for The date of first performance would also be very another 25 years.4 important for scholars but there is no evidence to date any première of any play by Shakespeare. The theatrical records are very fragmentary and Previous Attempts to Date only two performances might have been recorded Shakespeare’s Plays as premières: Henslowe’s Diary applies the prefix There have been many attempts to establish a “ne” to “harey the vi” on 3 March 1592 (but it chronology of the plays of Shakespeare and four is not clear which part) and to Titus Andronicus are outlined here as having great influence.5 on 23 January 1594. The note “ne” might mean ‘newly composed’, but could also mean ‘newly acquired’ or even ‘newly revised’.3 Edmond Malone (1778) Some plays are not mentioned in performance The earliest attempt to sequence and date the plays (e.g. Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus); of Shakespeare occurred soon after David Garrick for those plays which are mentioned, it is quite had organised the Stratford Jubilee in 1769. In common for orthodox scholars to make two 1778, Edmond Malone (1741–1812) published assumptions: his essay, An Attempt to Ascertain the Order in (a) that the earliest mentioned performance which the Plays of Shakespeare Were Written. It is the first staging, e.g. Cymbeline is first was a noble undertaking and Malone engaged mentioned by Forman in 1611, who many great minds, including Thomas Tyrwhitt is taken to have seen one of its first (1730–1786) and George Steevens (1736–1800), performances; in his search for contemporary evidence. Much (b) that the first performance must have of the material known today (e.g. The Stationers’ occurred soon after composition. Register, title pages to quartos, and the work of Meres) became available to Malone during the Various questions arise: firstly, did Forman witness course of his investigations but he concluded his the first ever performance of Cymbeline or of The essay with the insight that, to some, his project Winter’s Tale? Secondly, were these plays newly would appear “a tedious and barren speculation”. composed? It is usual to assume the answer is Malone proposed various dates, most of which ‘yes’ to both these questions but other possibilities are accepted today; a few have been discarded but exist. Forman himself notes a performance of remain tenable. He identifies The Winter’s Tale Macbeth (which he dates 1610 but is usually taken with the entry in the Stationers’ Register for A to refer to 1611). This is the earliest reference to Winter night’s Pastime in 1594. He dates Hamlet the Scottish play, yet no editor proposes that to 1596 on the basis of Harvey’s marginalia in Macbeth was newly composed when Forman saw a copy of Speght’s Chaucer. (As this edition is it; most editors opt for a date in 1606 but some now dated to 1598, Harvey’s written comments have accepted that it could have been earlier (or should be placed between 1598 and 1601). later). Malone subsequently changed his mind, placing Hamlet later in the sequence, and suggesting that Date of First Publication references in the works of Nashe and others were to a lost play by another playwright. He dated The date of first publication is normally Cymbeline to 1604 and placed Henry VIII in unproblematic and often rests on a combination 1601 despite knowledge of Henry Wooton’s letter of an entry in the Stationers’ Register with the (1613), in which it is written: “The King’s players bibliographic information on the title page. had a new play, called All is True, representing However, it is quite common for scholars some principal pieces of the reign of Henry VIII”. to assume that publication in quarto followed Unlike later commentators, Malone is aware that shortly after composition, e.g. that Richard II “new” might have been intended in different ways: was composed shortly before its registration in as ‘newly composed’, as ‘new to the Company’ or 1597. This assumption is again open to doubt: perhaps as ‘new to the general public’: previously © De Vere Society 3 Dating Shakespeare’s Plays: Introduction the play might have been performed at court or in comparative infrequency of the feminine ending a private house. (iv) comparative infrequency of the weak ending Schoenbaum (169) was very dismissive of (v) comparative infrequency of the unstopped line Malone’s efforts: (vi) regular internal structure of the line. To these he added frequency of classical allusions, puns, When he can find no evidence, [Malone] conceits, wit and imagery (itemised to the point of throws up his hands in despair and assigns exhaustion), treatment of clowns, the presence of a play to a year simply because that year termagants or shrewish women, difference in the would otherwise be blank and Shakespeare must have been continuously employed. use of soliloquies and symmetry in the grouping Such is the case with Coriolanus (1609) and of persons. Much of this followed the work of F. Timon of Athens (1610) for which objective G. Fleay and F. J. Furnivall. evidence is depressingly scant. Malone’s date Dowden’s four phases were: for Coriolanus is, however, a lucky guess. (a) in the workshop. The works of Shakespeare’s Schoenbaum is inconsistent. If the objective youth – experiments in various directions evidence for dating Coriolanus is “depressingly – are all marked by the presence of vivacity, scant” (there is no mention of Coriolanus before cleverness, delight in beauty, and a quick 1623), Schoenbaum cannot be sure that a date c. enjoyment of existence. Shakespeare was 1609 is correct. an apprentice reworking other people’s In the nineteenth century there were many plays. attempts to sequence and date the plays, which (b) in the world. But now Shakespeare’s wavered between the confident and the cautious: imagination began to lay hold of real life; John Payne Collier (History of English Dramatic he came to understand the world and Poetry, 1831) included a reference to the newly the men in it; his plays began to deal in discovered diary of John Manningham; he also an original and powerful way with the added further “evidence” which turned out to be matter of history.
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