-4
---------+-----------------------+-----------------+----------------------
| M. N. D. 1594-5 | R. II 1595 | R. and J. 1594-5
| M. of V. 1595-6 | |
| T. of S. 1596-7 | 1 Hy. IV 1597 |
II | M. W. of W. 1598 | 2 Hy. IV 1598 |
| M. Ado 1599 | Hy. V 1599 | J. Caes. 1599
| A. Y. L. I. 1599-1600 | |
| Tw. N. 1601 | |
---------+-----------------------+-----------------+----------------------
| T. & C. 1601-2 | |
| A. Well 1602 | |
| Meas. 1603 | | Ham. 1602, 1603
| | | Oth. 1604
III | | | Lear 1605-6
| | | Mach. 1606
| | | T. of Ath. 1607
| Per. 1607-8 | | A. & Cl. 1607-8
| | | Cor. 1609
---------+-----------------------+-----------------+----------------------
| Cymb. 1610 | |
| W. Tale 1611 | |
IV | Temp. 1611 | |
| T. N. K. 1612-13 | Hy. VIII 1612 |
| | |
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[Page Heading: First Period]

Table III gives a summary of the results of all the kinds of evidence
available as recorded in the introduction to individual plays in the
Tudor Shakespeare. The classification into Comedies, Histories, and
Tragedies draws attention at once to the changes in the type of drama on
which Shakespeare concentrated his main attention, and suggests the
usual division of his activity into four periods. In the first of these,
extending from the beginning of his writing (perhaps earlier than 1590)
to the end of 1593, he attempted practically all the forms of drama then
in vogue. Plays which were given him to revise, or in which he was
invited to collaborate, may naturally be supposed to have preceded
independent efforts, and his still undetermined share in _Henry VI_ is
usually regarded as his earliest dramatic production. What he learned in
this field