THE SHAKESPEARE CANNON

Problems of Shakespeare's plays:
what was the "ORIGINAL TEXT" written by Shakespeare?
"WHEN" were the plays written (or the first performed)?

At that time, Shakespeare and his colleagues where men of the theatre only concerned with the staging of the plays they wrote. This is the reason why they pay no attention to the written text.
Plays were no considered literature in the sense of lyrical or epic poetry.
Shakespeare supervised the publication of his mythological poems, but not of his plays.

The first fairly accurate and complete edition of Shakespeare's work was published in 1623.
The texts that we can read nowadays are not original, they are the result of a reconstruction of folios.

QUARTO SIZE: a whole sheet of paper is folded twice, to form four leaves.
COPY-BOOKS or PROMPTBOOKS: copies used by the company when rehearsing the play.

We do not know when it was written or performed every play. We have to guess the date of a play thinking into account external and internal evidence.

EXTERNAL EVIDENCE: a play may be mentioned in the Stationers' Register, or we may know that it was performed from contemporary documents.

INTERNAL EVIDENCE: a play may contain references to contemporary historical events witch help us to date it.