Hi,
Shakespeare invented the plot of “The Tempest”. What were the other two? I haven’t been able to find information on that. I look forward to your feedback.
davidmich
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He was unencumbered by modern anxieties of originality, only inventing the plot for “The Tempest” and one or two others.
I don’t know of a specific source for Midsummer, although of course, Theseus and Hippolyta were not Shakespeare’s invention, and I also don’t know of any sources for Love’s Labour’s Lost.
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And of course, even if the rest of Midsummer was original, Pyramus and Thisbe (the play-within-the-play) was a much older story (and also one of the sources for Romeo and Juliet).
As well as the two previously mentioned The Merry Wives of Windsor and Loves Labour’s Lost are often considered original plots, or their plots have not been definitively found elsewhere.
Thank you Fuzzy Wuzzy. I couldn’t find that information. Tthank you all.
davidmich
Love’s Labours Lost seemed to me to be a fairly by-the-numbers comedy, not much different from any of Shakespeare’s other comedies, right up until the out-of-nowhere downer in the last scene. Are we considering that last scene to be enough to make the plot “original”, or is the rest of it original enough, too?
Im not sure what counts as original plot. I do remember reading that three Shakespeare plays were considered original plots, or their plots had not definitively been found elsewhere. I knew of Midsummer and The Tempest but could not remember the other. Google gave me LLL and Merry Wives. It could be that LLL is not considered original by some. A number of these “original” plots of Shakespeare are in fact fairly plotless in themselves. On the other hand the “unoriginal” plot of MacBeth shows quite a bit of creativity/orginality in the changes Shakespeare made to it.