Did Shakespeare use other people's material?

Shakespeare is credited with thirty-seven plays, of which exactly one owes nothing to earlier material or historical fact. A Midsummer Night's Dream, in case you were wondering.

Hamlet, for example is based on a twelfth century work called Amleth by Saxo Grammaticus, which in turn is supposedly based on fact.

But what of it? Shakespeare took some raw material and turned it into works of genius.

Looking at things the other way, West Side Story, Forbidden Planet, Kiss Me Kate and Ten Things I Hate About You are all basically re-workings of Shakespeare plays. This doesn't detract from those works.

Yes, of course he did. Scholars today know this; the audiences in the Globe Theater on the day of the first-ever performance of Romeo And Juliet knew it. So what? You act like you've made some major historical discovery. Guess what: you haven't.