Exploration - So I have been looking for other writers and/or plays and stories that predated Shakespeare so that I could see if it were possible to re-attribute some of the credit that is given Shakespeare by modern film makers and storytellers. I want to make it clear that I do not want to get into the whole controversy of whether or not Shakespeare wrote all that is given to him. I do not doubt that and from what I have read the theory is not really founded on fact- just speculation. What I wanted to do, instead, was see who was influencing Shakespeare as he wrote it and then hopefully this would allow us to give more value to the writings of other authors that either came before Shakespeare or were contemporaries of him.
Textual analysis - A helpful guide in analyzing some of Shakespeare's works was the blog of Liz Dollimore . She has researched over a dozen Shakespeare plays and provided examples of works that were written before Shakespeare's plays. Using her researching I was able to go back and examine the same plays that she had to see for myself the similarities that existed. There are slight differences of course but a lot of the major plot elements were unchanged in Shakespeare's plays.
Social Proof - Another source that has proved encouraging was an article that Kaleigh shared with me that talks mainly about the grammar in Shakespeare's time but what I found particularly compelling was a comment stating that Shakespeare's contemporaries probably were inventing new words and phrases at the same rate that Shakespeare was. I have contacted the author of this article (Dr. Hope) as well as a Shakespeare scholar in Australia named Rod Mardsen that has been researching the development of the English language. I have also contacted Liz Dollimore, the Shakespeare sources blogger, but I am still waiting to hear back.
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