User:Roscelese/Sources of William Shakespeare's plays

William Shakespeare derived the plots of his plays from a variety of sources.

Title Year Genre Source(s)
All's Well That Ends Well 1604-1605 comedy or problem play Boccaccio's Decameron, Tale 3.9, trans. in William Painter's Palace of Pleasure[1]
Antony and Cleopatra 1606-1607 tragedy Plutarch's Parallel Lives, trans. Thomas North
As You Like It 1599-1600 comedy Thomas Lodge's Rosalind, Euphues' Golden Legacy, and indirectly The Tale of Gamelyn
Coriolanus 1608-09 tragedy Plutarch's Parallel Lives, trans. Thomas North, one speech from William Camden's Remaines of a Greater Worke Concerning Britaine; possibly Livy's Ab urbe condita, trans. Philemon Holland
The Comedy of Errors 1592-1594 comedy Plautus's Menaechmi, with elements from Amphitryon and Apollonius of Tyre
Cymbeline 1609-1611 comedy or romance Holinshed's Chronicles, loose adaptation with elements original and adapted from Decameron 2.9

References

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  1. ^ F. E. Halliday, A Shakespeare Companion 1564–1964, Baltimore, Penguin, 1964; p. 29.