Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick McRae
Another element of it is that Shakespeare also popularized a few timeless themes before anyone else did. Hamlet. Some phenomenal lines there, but poets can't just write them over and over again. To follow the Dylan analogy, you can't just keep writing 'Blowin' in the Wind' and 'Like a Rolling Stone'.
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What's interesting is that while you're certainly not wrong about Shakespeare's popularizing of timeless themes, those themes were themselves popular before Shakespeare was writing. Thinking specifically of his sonnets, there's a strong Petrarchan streak throughout (which is true of most Elizabethan sonnet sequences) -- the idea of loving someone who is unattainable, and barely regards you in return. It's pretty much a commonplace of sonnets until we get into the 17th century. Sidney's sonnets were much admired in his time, and a decided influence on Shakespeare. So were Samuel Daniel's sonnets in
Delia, which was published in 1592. Spenser's
Amoretti? Most likely. And we can definitively see the strong influence of Richard Tottel's collection of
Songes and Sonnettes (popularly called
Tottel's Miscellany) published in 1557, which contained the posthumous sonnets of Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey among others. Wyatt, of course, is credited for introducing the sonnet form to the English language, and writing many translations of Petrarch. Tottel's collection was
massively popular, going through eleven editions by the time Shakespeare was active. Its influence can never be overstated, and it's an easy argument to make that we wouldn't have Shakespeare's sonnets (and their timeless themes) without the popularity of Tottel's collection. Sonnets about time? Check. Sonnets about wanting to be remembered through verse? Check. Sonnets about loving someone who doesn't recognize you exist? Check, check, check.
To be clear, none of this means that Shakespeare wasn't "original" in his own way. But let's not forget that only two or three of his 38 plays were not adapted from earlier works, some of his plays were collaborations with other playwrights (next time you think of "Double double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble" you're actually quoting Thomas Middleton), and most themes had been played on stage before.
Hamlet's great, but playgoers would have been very familiar with most of its tropes having seen Thomas Kyd's
The Spanish Tragedy (complete with its revenge-urging ghost) performed repeatedly to high acclaim a decade earlier. So we certainly
can love Shakespeare for popularizing themes, but it brings us back to the question of mastery. Maybe he "perfected" some themes/tropes/ideas that were out there...but make no mistake that most of them
were indeed out there.