On a summer afternoon at the reconstructed Globe Theatre in London, I watched as the audience
gasped during the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet. The young lovers’ forbidden romance
unfolded with Shakespeare’s immortal lines: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by
any other name would smell as sweet.” After the performance, I overheard a visitor say to their
companion, “Isn’t it amazing that Shakespeare came up with this story? Such genius!”
This reaction is common. We often attribute the creation of our most beloved stories to
Shakespeare’s boundless imagination, star-crossed lovers from feuding families, a melancholy
Danish prince haunted by his father’s ghost, a Scottish general whose ambition leads to madness
and murder. Shakespeare’s name has become synonymous with literary invention, with an
almost supernatural ability to create characters and plots from nothing.
But this perception is largely false.
William Shakespeare, the most celebrated playwright in the English language, did not invent
most of his stories. Rather, he was a master adapter, transformer, and enhancer, taking existing
tales, histories, and legends and reshaping them into the masterpieces we know today. This
doesn’t diminish his genius, in many ways, it reveals a different kind of brilliance, but it does
contradict the popular myth of Shakespeare as the ultimate original storyteller.
The Art of Borrowing: Shakespeare’s Sources
During Shakespeare’s time (1564-1616), the concept of literary originality differed dramatically
from our modern understanding. Renaissance writers operated under the principle of imitatio, the
creative imitation and adaptation of existing works. Far from being discouraged, borrowing was
expected and even respected, provided the writer added something valuable to the original
material.
“In Shakespeare’s era, a playwright was judged not by whether he created an original plot, but
by how skillfully he transformed existing material, ” explains Dr. Stephen Greenblatt,
Shakespeare scholar and author of Will in the World. “The Elizabethan audience didn’t value
novelty in the way we do today, they appreciated seeing familiar stories told with new insight
and artistry.”
Let’s examine the sources of some of Shakespeare’s most famous plays:
Romeo and Juliet: An Italian Tale Retold
Shakespeare’s iconic tragedy of young love thwarted by family hatred wasn’t his invention. The
immediate source was Arthur Brooke’s 3, 000-line poem The Tragical History of Romeus and
Juliet, published in 1562, about three decades before Shakespeare’s play. Brooke himself was adapting a story from Italian writer Matteo Bandello, whose 1554 novella was based on even
earlier versions of the tale.
The essential elements were all present in these earlier works: the feuding families, the secret
marriage, the well-meaning friar, the sleeping potion, and the tragic double suicide. What
Shakespeare contributed was not the plot but the accelerated timeline (reducing the action from
months to days), the addition of memorable supporting characters like Mercutio, and, most
importantly, the transcendent poetry that transformed a conventional tragedy into an immortal
meditation on youth, passion, and fate.
During my visit to Verona, Italy, I saw the balcony that tourist guides claim inspired the famous
scene, though this is likely just another myth, as Shakespeare probably never visited Italy. The
important point is that the core story already existed in European culture long before
Shakespeare adapted it.
Hamlet: The Danish Prince’s Earlier Life
Perhaps Shakespeare’s most psychologically complex play, Hamlet draws directly from a
Scandinavian legend recorded in the 12th century by Saxo Grammaticus in his Gesta Danorum
(History of the Danes). The story of Amleth, Prince of Denmark, contains many elements
familiar to fans of Shakespeare’s play: a prince whose father is murdered by his uncle, who then
marries the prince’s mother; the prince’s feigned madness to avoid suspicion while he plots
revenge; and a bloody conclusion.
This tale was adapted into French by François de Belleforest in his Histoires Tragiques (1570),
which likely served as Shakespeare’s immediate source. There was also probably an earlier
English play about Hamlet (now lost) that scholars call the “Ur-Hamlet, ” possibly written by
Thomas Kyd.
When I spoke with Royal Shakespeare Company director Gregory Doran about these earlier
versions, he emphasized what Shakespeare added: “The Danish legend is a straightforward
revenge tale. Shakespeare transformed it by creating a protagonist with an unprecedented inner
life, a character who questions everything, including the very act of revenge itself. The plot may
not be original, but the philosophical depth certainly is.”
Macbeth: Scottish History Dramatized
For his “Scottish play, ” Shakespeare turned to Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles of England,
Scotland, and Ireland, a popular history book published in 1587. Holinshed’s account includes
the historical Macbeth’s murder of King Duncan, his reign, and his eventual defeat by Malcolm
with English aid.
However, the historical Macbeth ruled Scotland for 17 relatively successful years (1040-1057),
a far cry from the tyrant of Shakespeare’s imagination. The three witches, the sleepwalking Lady
Macbeth, and many other elements were either Shakespeare’s inventions or his adaptations of
other stories in Holinshed.”Shakespeare played fast and loose with history, ” explains historian Dr. Amanda Richardson.
“He was writing during the reign of James I, who was Scottish and claimed descent from
Banquo. Portraying Banquo as an innocent victim whose line would lead to the Stuart dynasty
was politically astute, but historically questionable.”
Other Major Works: A Pattern of Adaptation
This pattern of adaptation extends throughout Shakespeare’s canon:
Most of Shakespeare’s history plays follow Holinshed’s Chronicles quite closely for their
historical framework, if not their character development.
Even The Tempest, often considered one of Shakespeare’s most original plots, likely drew
inspiration from contemporary accounts of a shipwreck in Bermuda and from various travel
narratives popular in his time.
“Of Shakespeare’s 38 plays, only a handful, perhaps The Merry Wives of Windsor and Love’s
Labour’s Lost, have plots that could be considered predominantly original, ” notes Shakespeare
scholar Dr. Emma Smith of Oxford University. “And even these incorporate stock characters and
situations from earlier theatrical traditions.”
Shakespeare’s True Originality: Beyond Plot
If Shakespeare didn’t invent most of his stories, what makes him deserve his reputation as
perhaps the greatest writer in the English language? His genius lies not in creating plots from
scratch but in several other areas of innovation:
Psychological Complexity
Shakespeare transformed one-dimensional characters from his sources into fully realized human
beings with complex inner lives. His characters don’t merely advance the plot, they question,
doubt, and wrestle with themselves in ways that were revolutionary for Renaissance drama.
Consider Hamlet’s famous soliloquies, where he contemplates existence, action, and morality:
“To be, or not to be, that is the question.” Nothing remotely similar appears in the earlier
versions of the Hamlet story, where the protagonist is a straightforward avenger without serious
moral qualms.
Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra draw directly from Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble
Greeks and Romans, translated into English by Thomas North in 1579.
King Lear adapts the pre-existing legend of King Leir of Britain, found in Geoffrey of
Monmouth’s 12th-century Historia Regum Britanniae and retold in Holinshed’s
Chronicles.
Othello comes from a short story called “Un Capitano Moro” (“A Moorish Captain”) by
Italian writer Cinthio, published in 1565.
The Winter’s Tale is based on Robert Greene’s romance Pandosto: The Triumph of Time
(1588).
“Shakespeare invented the human as we continue to know it, ” argues literary critic Harold
Bloom. “His characters have an interiority and self-awareness that didn’t exist in literature before
him.”
This psychological realism extends throughout Shakespeare’s work. Lady Macbeth’s descent into
guilt-ridden madness, Othello’s journey from confident commander to jealous murderer, Lear’s
growth through suffering, these character arcs have a depth and nuance absent from
Shakespeare’s sources.
Language and Poetic Innovation
While Shakespeare borrowed plots, his language was revolutionary. He expanded the English
vocabulary by inventing or popularizing thousands of words and phrases that remain in use
today:
- “All that glitters is not gold” (The Merchant of Venice)
- “The game is afoot” (Henry V)
- “A heart of gold” (Henry V)
- “Love is blind” (The Merchant of Venice)
- “The milk of human kindness” (Macbeth)
- “Wild-goose chase” (Romeo and Juliet)
Beyond individual words and phrases, Shakespeare’s use of blank verse (unrhymed iambic
pentameter) transformed English drama. He adapted this verse form to match character and
situation, creating distinctive speech patterns for different social classes and psychological
states. Kings speak in formal, measured tones, while commoners use prose; characters in
emotional turmoil break conventional meter, reflecting their disturbed state of mind.
“Shakespeare didn’t just use language, he reinvented it, ” explains linguist Dr. David Crystal. “He
showed that English could be both earthy and sublime, capable of expressing the full range of
human experience from the crudest joke to the most profound philosophical insight.”
Thematic Depth and Universal Resonance
Shakespeare took conventional stories and invested them with themes and questions that
transcend their original contexts. A revenge tale becomes an exploration of human existence
(Hamlet). A historical power struggle becomes a meditation on the nature of evil and ambition
(Macbeth). A folk tale about testing love transforms into a profound study of aging, madness,
and reconciliation (King Lear).
“What makes Shakespeare’s adaptations unique is that he asks bigger questions through these
familiar stories, ” notes theater director Peter Brook. “He uses them as vehicles to explore what it
means to be human in all its complexity, love, hatred, jealousy, ambition, mercy, cruelty, the
whole spectrum of human experience.
This thematic expansion explains why Shakespeare’s works remain relevant when his sources are
largely forgotten. His characters and their dilemmas speak to fundamental human experiences
that resonate across centuries and cultures.
Theatrical Innovation
Shakespeare wasn’t just a writer, he was a man of the theater who understood stagecraft
intimately. As a shareholder in his playing company, he wrote with performance in mind,
creating roles that showcased his actors’ strengths and scenes that could be effectively staged
with minimal resources.
He pioneered techniques like the aside and the soliloquy to reveal characters’ inner thoughts
directly to the audience. He experimented with metatheatrical elements (plays-within-plays,
characters who comment on the nature of theater) and with fluid scene structures that could
move rapidly between locations without elaborate scene changes.
“Shakespeare thought like a director and producer as well as a poet, ” explains former artistic
director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Sir Michael Boyd. “His scripts are blueprints for
performance that leave room for creative staging decisions while providing rich material for
actors to inhabit.”
How the Myth of Shakespeare’s Originality Developed
If Shakespeare’s genius lay in adaptation rather than invention, how did we come to see him
primarily as an original creator? This misconception developed gradually over the centuries after
his death, driven by changing artistic values and national politics.
The Rise of Originality as a Value
During the Romantic period (late 18th to mid-19th century), artistic values shifted dramatically.
Originality, creating something entirely new, became prized above the Renaissance value of
skilled adaptation. As this new aesthetic sensibility took hold, critics began to emphasize
Shakespeare’s creative powers while downplaying his sources.
“The Romantics reimagined Shakespeare in their own image, as a natural genius whose works
sprang from pure inspiration rather than careful study and adaptation, ” explains literary historian
Dr. Jonathan Bate. “This vision of Shakespeare aligned with their own artistic ideals but
distorted the historical reality of how Renaissance writers worked.”
This Romantic conception of Shakespeare persisted into the 20th century, particularly in
educational contexts where his plays were taught with little reference to their sources. Students
encountered Shakespeare’s works as self-contained masterpieces rather than as participants in an
ongoing conversation with earlier texts
Shakespeare as National Icon
Shakespeare’s elevation to the status of untouchable genius also served political purposes. As the
British Empire expanded, Shakespeare became a cultural ambassador, a symbol of British
intellectual and artistic superiority.
“Shakespeare was deployed as a kind of cultural capital, ” notes postcolonial scholar Dr. Ania
Loomba. “His supposed originality became evidence of British creative genius, justifying
cultural dominance alongside political and economic control.”
This nationalistic embrace of Shakespeare required a narrative of exceptional British genius
rather than a more complex understanding of how he transformed multicultural sources into new
works. The foreign origins of many of his stories were downplayed, while his uniquely
“English” qualities were emphasized.
The Disappearance of Sources from Popular Awareness
Perhaps the most practical reason for the myth of Shakespeare’s originality is simply that his
sources faded from public consciousness while his works endured. Few people today read
Holinshed’s Chronicles, Plutarch’s Lives, Cinthio’s tales, or Brooke’s poem about Romeus and
Juliet.
When we encounter Shakespeare’s plays without knowledge of their literary ancestors, it’s easy
to attribute everything in them to Shakespeare’s invention. The brilliance of his language,
characterization, and thematic development overshadows the borrowed narrative frameworks
that support these elements.
“Shakespeare’s versions have essentially replaced their sources in cultural memory, ” observes
Dr. Michael Dobson, Director of the Shakespeare Institute. “When we think of Hamlet or
Romeo and Juliet, we think exclusively of Shakespeare’s interpretations, not the earlier versions
that most people have never encountered.”
Shakespeare in Context: Renaissance Adaptation Practices
To properly understand Shakespeare’s creative process, we need to place him within the context
of Renaissance literary practices, where adaptation was the norm rather than the exception.
Shakespeare’s contemporaries, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, Thomas Kyd, and others, all
worked with existing material. Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus adapted earlier versions of the Faust
legend. Jonson’s Roman plays, like Shakespeare’s, drew heavily from classical sources. The
idea that a playwright should invent entirely new plots would have seemed strange to
Elizabethan audiences and writers alike.
“Renaissance drama operated more like modern television and film than like modern literature, “
suggests media scholar Dr. Robert Greene. “Think of Shakespeare as a brilliant showrunner adapting source material, like how today’s filmmakers adapt novels, comics, or true stories
while adding their own distinctive vision.”
This comparison helps us understand why Shakespeare’s contemporaries praised him not for
inventing stories but for his “sugared sonnets, ” his “honey-flowing vein, ” and his skill at
improving existing material. Ben Jonson’s famous tribute that Shakespeare “was not of an age,
but for all time” celebrates his transcendent artistry, not his originality of plot.
Shakespeare himself seems to have valued effective adaptation over novelty. He returned
repeatedly to certain sources (particularly Holinshed and Plutarch) and even adapted his own
works, reworking plot elements and character types that had proven successful in earlier plays.
Why This Myth Matters: Rethinking Creativity
Understanding that Shakespeare was an adapter rather than an inventor has important
implications for how we think about creativity, education, and artistic development.
A More Realistic Model of Creative Process
The myth of Shakespeare inventing his stories from nothing promotes an unrealistic view of
creativity, one that emphasizes mysterious inspiration over craft, study, and transformation.
This can be intimidating and discouraging for aspiring writers and artists who struggle to create
something “completely original.”
“The truth about Shakespeare offers a more accessible model of creativity, ” argues creative
writing professor Dr. Jane Hamilton. “It suggests that genius often lies not in creating something
from nothing, but in seeing the potential in existing material and transforming it in ways others
couldn’t imagine.”
Many of history’s most celebrated creators worked similarly, Bach adapted folk melodies,
Picasso drew on African art, and modern filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino explicitly sample
and remix earlier works. Understanding creativity as transformation rather than ex nihilo creation
provides a more accurate and encouraging model.
Appreciating Shakespeare’s Actual Achievements
Ironically, the myth of Shakespeare’s originality can prevent us from fully appreciating his
actual innovations. When we focus excessively on the question “Did Shakespeare invent this
story?” we may miss the profound ways in which he reinvented character, language, and
theatrical technique.
“By perpetuating the myth that Shakespeare created all his material from scratch, we’re actually
selling him short, ” notes Shakespeare director Emma Rice. “We’re focusing on the one thing he
didn’t particularly do, invent plots, rather than on the extraordinary things he did do: creating
psychologically complex characters, revolutionary poetic language, and plays that continue to
move audiences centuries later.”Recognizing Shakespeare as an adapter allows us to better understand and appreciate the nature
of his genius, not as a solitary inventor but as an artist engaged in conversation with his literary
heritage, transforming what he borrowed into something greater than its sources.
Seeing Art as Conversation, Not Creation Ex Nihilo
Perhaps most importantly, the reality of Shakespeare’s creative process reminds us that art exists
in a continuum, a conversation across time between artists building on each other’s work. No
creator exists in isolation, and even the most innovative works are responses to what came
before.
“The myth of absolute originality is relatively recent and not particularly helpful, ” observes
cultural historian Dr. Thomas Harrison. “Throughout most of human history, artists understood
their work as participating in traditions, adapting and responding to predecessors rather than
creating from nothing.”
This perspective encourages greater appreciation for the interconnected nature of culture. Just as
Shakespeare drew on Holinshed and Plutarch, modern creators from West Side Story’s
adaptation of Romeo and Juliet to The Lion King’s reimagining of Hamlet continue to build on
Shakespeare’s works. The cycle of adaptation and transformation continues, a testament to how
creativity actually operates.
What Shakespeare Really Was: A Master Transformer
Recognizing that Shakespeare didn’t invent most of his plots doesn’t diminish his status as
perhaps the greatest writer in the English language. Instead, it helps us understand the true
nature of his genius: not as a creator of stories, but as a transformer who could take existing
material and elevate it to unprecedented heights.
Shakespeare had an unmatched ability to see the potential in existing narratives, to identify the
human core in histories, legends, and tales that could be expanded into profound explorations of
the human condition. He was a literary alchemist, turning the lead of conventional stories into
gold through his psychological insight, linguistic brilliance, and theatrical instinct.
In Shakespeare’s hands, a straightforward revenge tale became Hamlet’s existential journey. A
historical account of a Scottish king became a chilling study of ambition and guilt. A tragic
romance became the definitive portrayal of young love sacrificed to pointless hatred. He didn’t
invent these narratives, but he reinvented them so thoroughly that his versions have become
definitive.
“Shakespeare’s genius wasn’t creating something from nothing, ” concludes Dr. Stephen
Greenblatt. “It was his ability to take what existed and make it speak to the deepest aspects of
human experience. He didn’t need to invent his stories because he was more interested in using
familiar tales to reveal unfamiliar truths about what it means to be human.”This understanding of Shakespeare offers a more nuanced and ultimately more inspiring vision
of artistic achievement, one based not on mysterious, inaccessible originality but on the deeply
human capacity to transform and reimagine what we inherit. Perhaps this is Shakespeare’s most
enduring lesson for creators in any medium: greatness lies not in inventing what no one has seen
before, but in helping us see the familiar in profoundly new ways.
Key Insights from Chapter 12
Shakespeare’s genius was taking conventional material and making it transcendent
through his unmatched insight into human nature and his extraordinary command of
language.
In our next chapter, we’ll explore another persistent historical myth, the idea that Nero fiddled
while Rome burned. Like the misconception about Shakespeare’s originality, this widely
repeated “historical fact” about one of history’s most notorious emperors turns out to be
impossible, revealing how compelling narratives often overshadow historical reality.
William Shakespeare did not invent most of his plots, he adapted them from historical
chronicles, classical works, folk tales, and contemporary European literature.
His major sources included Holinshed’s Chronicles (for history plays and Macbeth),
Plutarch’s Lives (for Roman plays), and various Italian and French tales that had been
translated into English.
Renaissance literary culture valued skillful adaptation over originality of plot,
Shakespeare was following the standard practice of his time.
Shakespeare’s true innovation lay in his psychological characterization, poetic language,
thematic depth, and theatrical techniques, not in creating original stories.
The myth of Shakespeare as a complete original developed later, particularly during the
Romantic era when artistic values shifted to emphasize innovation over adaptation.
Understanding Shakespeare as an adapter rather than an inventor provides a more
realistic model of how creativity actually works, as transformation and conversation
rather than creation from nothing.