>read people on /lit/ claim, argue, and defend that Shakespeare was an illiterate plebeian
>read the first two acts of Titus Andronicus, one of his earliest plays
>direct reference to Hecuba from Euripides
>direct reference to Ajax from Sophocles
>direct reference to book 4 of The Aeneid
>constant references to Ovid's Metamorphoses
>probably some references to Seneca
>probably some references that I didn't get
Why do you niggas lie so much? Is the meme worth ruining a legend's image?
Anyways, Shakespeare thread.

>>24532638 (OP)
Well, at least in Ovid's case, he read Golding's transformation. It would not be impossible for him to get information about the Greek Tragedies from other sources.

>>24532638 (OP)
I forgot to add:
>he knew latin or at least a wide variety of latin phrases

>>24532644
I am not sure how many of the Greeks existed in Shakespearean times but the structure and thematic parallels between Euripides and Shakespeare are obvious, especially Electra and Hamlet.

>>24532683
>especially Electra and Hamlet.
And they are?

>>24532683
>>24532689
OP here to add my little gran of sand, I haven't read Euripides' Electra but I have read the original play which is The Oresteia by Aeschylus and also Electra by Sophocles. I haven't read Hamlet neither yet, but I know The Lion King is based on Hamlet, and ignoring the third play of The Oresteia they are practically the same story.
King gets killed by a member of his family who later marries the original king's wife. The child of the original king somehow escapes the kingdom and grows up in another town as a normal person. After becoming an adult, he comes back to his father's kingdom and plots with strategy a stratagem to revenge his father.
I know Hamlet ends in tragedy, while The Oresteia and Lion King doesn't, so I have no idea how it ends.

>>24532714
>>24532689
I forgot to add:
Both characters who killed the original king become tyrans, and also both protagonist do not achieve their revenge with power but rather with intelligence.

>>24532638 (OP)

>>24532644
>>24532683
Seneca became wildly popular in England when Shakespeare was a young man.

>>24532714
The Lion King is based on Hamlet?
I don't watch cartoons, so I don't know
Hamlet was a fucking dipshit loser who caused a girl to go mad and kill herself for no reason and murdered a perfectly innocent guy because he's a fuck up
And he can't even piss in a bucket without a 15 minute monologue first

>>24532714
You hit the nail on the head. They're basically the same story

>>24532866
I forgot to add his stupidity and loserness gets himself killed
*spoiler alert*
Also, it's been 400 years so not really a spoiler

>Shakespeare was a solo project

>>24532794
>A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they are not true...I do not deserve a share in governing a hen-roost much less a nation. Nor do most people...The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.
-C. S. Lewis

>>24532866
All other retardation aside, Polonius wasn‘t innocent.

It's not really a direct adaptation as other works of Walt Disney, but the story is very heavily inspired by Hamlet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5XhsWKDYYw

>>24532888
Isn’t this retard implying democracy doesn’t have masters? The only difference is that the masters are elected by even the very same retards he declaims as opposed to selected for by any natural merit bar popular appeal.

>>24532920
The point is that in democracy power has checks and balances (at least in theory). Note the key word, "unchecked" power over his fellows.