Shakespeare’s Refashioning Of His Source Material Was Utterly Drastic. One Of The Excitements Of Criticism Is To Compare What He Stole With What He Made Of It” Nevill Coghill Notes

"Shakespeare's refashioning of his source material was utterly drastic. One of the excitements of criticism is to compare what he stole with what he made of it" Nevill Coghill Shakespeare's use of source material has been termed the "elephant graveyard" of criticism (Greenblatt) and it is certainly an extraordinarily large field. One only has to look at Bullough's many volumes to see this. More importantly however, investigating Shakespeare's work retrospectively, characterizing him as a 'thief' of sources we cannot guarantee he may have read and even when he may of read them is not perhaps the best form of criticism. Firstly, because of the sheer economical demand for new plays and the tastes of the age, it is not surprising that Shakespeare looked to his predecessors for material. Secondly, this was not a trait that was singular to Shakespeare, both playwrights, poets and even political writers looked to antiquity for inspiration and so analyzing Shakespeare' use of sources does not contribute, as other forms of investigation might, to understanding his own dramatic art rather than a more general Renaissance trend. What is guaranteed however, is that Shakespeare read his own plays and that he was actively aware and engaged in contemporary issues. His reshaping of his own material, his reaction to political affairs, and to the needs of his audience reveals more precisely the type of dramatist that Shakespeare was. Shakespeare's Late Plays naturally contained more instances of re--use than the earlier plays and as given their position in the Shakespeare canon, offer a useful view of Shakespeare's dramatic art and use of material. Glynne Wickham in his article on Tragi--comedy suggests that King Lear ()is a prologue to these later 

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