ABSTRACT
The Jacobean period in dramaturgy began several years before the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603: it started in 1600. In Shakespeare’s oeuvre the change was signaled by Hamlet: its verse structure foreshadows Shakespeare’s later plays. We know from Shakespeare’s own works that his style changed “with the time,” though he found a way to “new-found methods” on his own terms, with his own stylistic features which were adapted by later poets, such as James Shirley. This sometimes happens: a stylistic feature of an earlier poet is captured by a younger author of the next generation who bypasses his immediate predecessors.
