The early plays
The chronology of Shakespeare's plays is difficult to establish beyond doubt. In this discussion of his life, they are divided arbitrarily into five groups corresponding to the five "ages" of his remaining life:
Reading Room
Related pages
- Shakespeare's Youth
- Courtship and marriage
- Marriage: speculation
- Married life
- The Shakespeare family
- The "lost years"
- Character assassination?
- The upstart crow
- An attack on Shakespeare
- The attack retracted
- The early plays
- Experimental plays
- A patron, poems, a plot
- Dedication and friendship
- More about the patron
- The plot thickens
- An ambiguous dedication
- Characters in the Sonnets
- Bare, ruined choirs . . .
- Back to facts
- A comedy of errors
- Popularity and publication