When Shakespeare was writing no playwrights,  he was concerned with the staging of the plays, he might also acted or direct them but he paid no attention to the written text.

Plurality of roles--> because of money problems.

Plays was not considered literature as lyrics and epic poetry, so the text of the most successfully plays were published without the permission of the author and, for this reason, they were unreliable.

They were considered bad because, for example, they were reconstructed from notes taken by someone in the audience. Since they were published in quarto size(a piece of paper folded to form four leaves) they were called “bad quartos”.

-->some of these quartos were also good because the author may have agreed to control the plays or because editor had used the author’s original manuscript.

In 1623 was published the first accurate and complete edition of Shakespeare’s works, it is known as “First Folio” because the shift of paper was folded only once.

We do not know the date of composition and performation of every plays. More often in fact we have to guess the date referring to external and internal evidence.

1.       EXTERNAL EVIDENCE:

-          Play mentioned in the Stationers’ register.

-          Play mentioned in contemporary document that say that this play was performed in a determinate theatre.

-          Play mentioned in other author’s works.

2.      INTERNAL EVIDENCE:

-          A play may contain some quotation to contemporary historical events which help us to date it.

-          A play may use expression and images that came from other books whose date we know for certain.

-          The style.