Where did Shakespeare take plots for his plays?

The source for Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet is, undoubtedly, the most known Shakespeare’s work. If you had lived in Shakespeare’s period, it would have been impossible to find the person who wouldn’t have known this romantic story of two young people. The play describes the feeling of love and its incredible force that leads to the unbelievable feats. This love has no borders and exists in those places where it shouldn’t appear. It is a feeling that doesn’t mind the rules and closes its eyes on the acceptance of correspondence from both sides. This feeling allows two people from the enemy’s wings to be together and gives them the courage to go through any difficulties and stand the ordeal. The love takes off all the fear, and the person isn’t afraid to sacrifice his life. It doesn’t disappear, and in a crucial and painful period of the time, it only becomes stronger. Surfing the Internet, you can find romeo and juliet essay topics that will present you inspiration.

Whenever someone hears a story of Romeo and Juliet, one automatically associates it with the name of William Shakespeare. However, if we explore the history, we will find that the famous playwright hadn’t created the plot for his play himself. The source of the story about two young lovers are laid in the poem “The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet.”The poem was written in 1562 by Arthur Brooke, and it is widely considered that Shakespeare was influenced by this poem to write the well-known play.

The source for Hamlet

Among others well-known Shakespeare’s works there is a play titled Hamlet. It had become radically popular and caused an ambiguous reaction among the critics. The play has a complicated fable with unexpected and tense climaxes. It recovered the eternal theme of morality and justice. The whole world in the face of Hamlet’s family is drowned in the swamp of the iniquity, moral blindness, and perversion. It is a story of the resistance, a picture of one person struggling to change the world and to save the sense of moral balance in his mind. The play recovers the impossibility of single warrior to fight with the large army. However, in these cravings and proofs, he found himself and could understand better his inner strivings.

Although it is believed to be Shakespeare’s work, the plot of this play, like his many others works, was not created by this writer himself. It was taken from the chronicled story of Denmark King’s which included a story of Amleth who was believed to be a real king Hamlet. The source was titled “Gesta Danorum” that means“Deeds of the Danes” and was written by Saxo Grammaticus approximately in 1200 AD. For those who have discovered this source, the relationship between the Amleth and well-known for everyone Hamlet becomes completely clear and implicit. Undoubtedly, Shakespeare had read the Latin version before creating his play.

Are the Shakespeare’s plays original?

It could be surprisingly for some people, but most historians state the fact that Shakespeare didn’t create the plots for his plays. He mostly took them from the history and the contemporary books he had read. He borrowed the theme, the main ideas, and the characters of the source story and developed them in his way. However, the writer didn’t copy and rewrite these narratives. He showed the high level of his imagination and creativity in making scenes and creating characters. Reading the source, he noticed the characters that were plain and unimportant at first sight.The author picked and presented them a crucial role in his plays developing them as the strong and independent personalities even if they were only briefly mentioned in the sources. The common reader might not pay much attention to them. He added more contrast to the correlation among the opposite characters, made climaxes much more expressed and created unexpected and incredible conclusions for his stories.

Although Shakespeare’s plays aren’t original, they attracted a huge audience in those times and still attract our modern society. The explanation of this fact is hidden in his absolute mastery and perfect writing skills. The writer had left an eternal trace in the development of literature.