Editing Hamlet (section)

==Date==
[[File:John Barrymore Hamlet 1922.jpg|right|thumb|[[John Barrymore]] as Hamlet (1922)]]
"Any dating of ''Hamlet'' must be tentative", states the ''New Cambridge'' editor, [[Philip Edwards (academic)|Phillip Edwards]]. MacCary suggests 1599 or 1600;{{sfn|MacCary|1998|p=13}} James Shapiro offers late 1600 or early 1601;{{sfn|Shapiro|2005|p=341}} [[Stanley Wells|Wells]] and [[Gary Taylor (scholar)|Taylor]] suggest that the play was written in 1600 and revised later;{{sfn|Wells|Taylor|1988|p=653}} the New Cambridge editor settles on mid-1601;{{sfn|Edwards|1985|p=8}} the New Swan Shakespeare Advanced Series editor agrees with 1601;{{sfn|Lott|1970|p=xlvi}} Thompson and Taylor, tentatively ("according to whether one is the more persuaded by Jenkins or by Honigmann") suggest a ''[[Terminus post quem|terminus ad quem]]'' of either Spring 1601 or sometime in 1600.{{sfn|Thompson|Taylor|2006a|pp=58–59}}

The [[Terminus post quem|earliest date estimate]] relies on ''Hamlet''{{'}}s frequent allusions to Shakespeare's ''[[Julius Caesar (play)|Julius Caesar]]'', itself dated to mid-1599.{{sfn|MacCary|1998|pp=12–13}}{{sfn|Edwards|1985|pp=5–6}} The [[Terminus post quem|latest date estimate]] is based on an entry, of 26 July 1602, in the [[Stationers' Register|Register]] of the [[Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers|Stationers' Company]], indicating that ''Hamlet'' was "latelie Acted by the [[Lord Chamberlain's Men|Lo: Chamberleyne his servantes]]".

In 1598, [[Francis Meres]] published his ''Palladis Tamia'', a survey of English literature from Chaucer to its present day, within which twelve of Shakespeare's plays are named. ''Hamlet'' is not among them, suggesting that it had not yet been written. As ''Hamlet'' was very popular, Bernard Lott, the series editor of ''New Swan'', believes it "unlikely that he [Meres] would have overlooked ... so significant a piece".{{sfn|Lott|1970|p=xlvi}}

The phrase "little eyases"{{refn|''Hamlet F1'' 2.2.337.}} in the [[First Folio]] (F1) may allude to the [[Children of the Chapel]], whose popularity in London forced the Globe company into provincial touring.{{refn|''Hamlet F1'' 2.2.324–360}} This became known as the [[War of the Theatres]], and supports a 1601 dating.{{sfn|Lott|1970|p=xlvi}} [[Katherine Duncan-Jones]] accepts a 1600–01 attribution for the date ''Hamlet'' was written, but notes that the [[Lord Chamberlain's Men]], playing ''Hamlet'' in the 3000-capacity [[Globe Theatre|Globe]], were unlikely to be put to any disadvantage by an audience of "barely one hundred" for the Children of the chapel's equivalent play, ''[[Antonio's Revenge]]''; she believes that Shakespeare, confident in the superiority of his own work, was making a playful and charitable allusion to his friend [[John Marston (playwright)|John Marston's]] very similar piece.{{sfn|Duncan-Jones|2001|pp=143–149}}

A contemporary of Shakespeare's, [[Gabriel Harvey]], wrote a marginal note in his copy of the 1598 edition of [[Geoffrey Chaucer|Chaucer's]] works, which some scholars use as dating evidence. Harvey's note says that "the wiser sort" enjoy ''Hamlet'', and implies that [[Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex|the Earl of Essex]]—executed in February 1601 for rebellion—was still alive. Other scholars consider this inconclusive. Edwards, for example, concludes that the "sense of time is so confused in Harvey's note that it is really of little use in trying to date {{italics correction|''Hamlet''}}". This is because the same note also refers to [[Edmund Spenser|Spenser]] and [[Thomas Watson (poet)|Watson]] as if they were still alive ("our flourishing [[Meter (poetry)|metricians]]"), but also mentions "[[John Owen (epigrammatist)|Owen's]] new epigrams", published in 1607.{{sfn|Edwards|1985|p=5}}