Shakespeare scholarship is of vast extent and complexity. It is concerned in its major operations with (a) the establishment of the text, (b) its transmission, (c) its elucidation, (d) the canon, (e) chronology, (f) the study of sources, (g) the biography of the author, (h) his manipulation of material, (i) his mental processes, (j) his versification, (k) his reading, (l) his poetical imagery, (m) his relation to the literary movements of his time, (n) his relation to individual contemporaries, (o) his reputation, (p) his influence at home and abroad, (q) the historical and political background, (r) the social background, (s) the intellectual background, scientific and philosophical, (t) the linguistic background, (u) palaeography, (v) iconography, (w) the theatrical background, (x) the specific conditions of performance, (j) the author's dramatic technique, and (z) the pattern of his growth. The select bibliography by Ebisch and Schücking contains over 4000 items, and the present outline is a first attempt to cover the whole field of scholarship from Langbaine to the twentieth century.

The seventeenth century did little more than hint. Dryden in An Essay of Dramatick Poesie was aware of the existence of problems of language, versification, learning, sources, and biography, but the time was not yet ripe for action. Fuller and Aubrey made jottings for the life of Shakespeare. The much maligned Rymer started two hares, the discussion of Shakespeare's dramatic method by comparison with a specific source, and the publication, in his Fœdera, of a contemporary document containing Shakespeare's name.