How Shakespeare got his ideas

Much of Shakespeare's plays came from prior works.

• Hamlet took inspiration from Gesta Danorum, a twelfth-century work on Danish history by Saxo Grammaticus, consisting of sixteen Latin books.
• Holinshed’s Chronicles likely inspired Macbeth and King Lear.
• Parts of Antony and Cleopatra are copied verbatim from Plutarch’s Life of Mark Anthony.
• Romeo and Juliet was built upon the 1562 poem The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet from Arthur Booke.

He took these texts rather un-popular texts and turned them into works of literary art.