Palladis Tamia - Shakespeare References

Shakespeare References

In the "Comparative Discourse" section Meres lists a dozen Shakespearean plays, identified by him as six comedies and six tragedies (Comedy: Two Gentlemen of Verona, Comedy of Errors, Love's Labours Lost, Love Labours Won, Midsummer's Night Dream, and Merchant of Venice; "Tragedy": Richard II, Richard III, Henry the IV, King John, Titus Andronicus, and Romeo and Juliet), establishing their composition before 1598.

This passage has sometimes been taken to indicate that only those Shakespeare plays had been written by 1598. However, there is no way of knowing how complete Meres' knowledge of the published plays actually was or whether he even intended to produce a comprehensive list of all the plays; at the very least, it is generally agreed that Meres neglects all three parts of the Henry VI trilogy which most scholars believe were written by 1591, seven years before Palladis Tamia.