Date
The date of the play's authorship and stage premier is a matter of dispute among scholars. The play's text shows a number of references, allusions, and borrowings from dramas current around the turn of the century, like John Marston's Antonio's Revenge (1600); the play's parodies of passages in Hamlet, including the famous soliloquy, have been widely noted by commentators. So, some critics have agreed with Chapman scholar T. M. Parrott in favoring a date of c. 1601-2. Yet the text also shows links with works current almost a decade later, like Thomas Dekker's The Gull's Hornbook (1609). One solution for this contradiction is the hypothesis, offered by Parrott, that Chapman wrote the play c. 1601-2 and then revised it for a new production c. 1609. This hypothesis, while certainly possible, has also been received with a measure of skepticism.
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