What are the sources of Shakespeare's historical plays?

Answer 1

A very good question.

Plot Sources

Shakespeare's plots are Shakespeare used a variety of books, histories, and earlier plays as subject material for his plays. For instance, the English history plays rely heavily on Raphael Holinshed's "Chronicles" from 1587. This would have been blended with other historical documents of the time and the oral traditions and history. Shakespeare wrote two four-play sequences dealing with the full story of the Wars of the Roses. This was a civil war in England that lasted from 1455-1485, only 100-130 years before Shakespeare's writing, so this was recent history to him, as WWII or the American Civil War is to us. The First History Cycle, written early in Shakespeare's career, consists of Henry VI parts I, II, and III, and Richard III. The Second History Cycle, written a few years later, consists of Richard II, Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2, and Henry V.

His history plays and tragedies that are based in Roman or Greek times, such as Anthony and Cleopatra or Julius Ceasar, were influenced by Plutarch's "Parallel Lives" (sometimes known as "Lives of Famous Greeks and Romans").

King Lear was based on a previous play called King Leir, and Hamlet was also probably based on a much earlier work that is now lost and is often called the Ur-Hamlet. Although it is set on an island in the Mediterranean, some of the setting for his swan-song, The Tempest, may have been based on the contemporary reports coming back from the first English explorers of North America. Many of his plays were based on written stories which already existed (like Romeo and Juliet, based on Arthur Brooke's Romeus and Juliet).

Character Sources

Shakespeare may have found nature an inspiration, and peoples' different reactions to love and life. Thus he may have got some of his ideas for characterizations from life experiences, although his plots did not come from events in his life.

The sometimes desperate desire to tie characters and events in the plays to events in the author's life has caused some people to fix upon someone whose life we know more about than Shakespeare's and then imagine him to be the author. As a result such people say "Many of the great Shakespearean plays are autobiographical (based on many actual events in Edward DeVere's life)" It is of course easy to tie events in plays to events in some random person's life, but it doesn't mean that person is the playwright.

The bottom line is: Since he didn't say; we don't know.
He got most of them from books he had read. Holinshed's Chronicles were a great source for the history plays as well as plays like King Lear, Cymbeline, and Macbeth. Tacitus was a source for Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra. He got Hamlet from a book by Belleforest, Romeo and Juliet from a poem by Arthur Brooke, and As You Like It from a story called Rosalynde.

Answer 2

There are many more than two primary sources of information about Shakespeare.

These include records of his baptism, wedding and funeral and the records of birth of his children.

There are legal documents relating to various property transactions involving him and his theatre company, school records, and, of course, his will.

There is much that is unknown about Shakespeare, but there is also much that we do know.

Answer 3

Shakespeare's primary source for English history was Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles. He may also have used earlier plays (such as the earlier Henry V). His Roman histories are mainly derived from Plutarch's Lives of the Greeks and Romans.