Shakespeare if not the most elusive of all literary greats, or perhaps a close second to Homer. Most of what has been written about him is educated speculation. If it wasn't for the body of work attributed to him, there would be very little evidence that he even existed.

It has been pointed out that Shakespeare's lexicon extended to some 35,000 words (some of which appeared for the first time in his work)--Bacon, who is regarded by many as the greatest intellect of his time, by contrast, used less than 10,000 words. And he seemed to have knowledge of great depth about more things than one man could.

If you think of his work as literature, all this is greatly mysterious, but it is more understandable when you remember that it was theatre.

Then, as now, theatrical productions are collaborative efforts--a lot of the speeches were recitations that were associated with particular actors--many of the comic scenes (like the recurring dialogues between a fool and a gentleman) were much like the comic sketches we know from Abbott and Costello and the Marx Brothers,and were interpolated in to different plays--

Many of the stories were familiar, and likely had been enacted in different ways which were transmitted orally amongst acting companies in other forms before they were crafted by Shakespeare--

And, of necessity, a certain amount must have been born on the stage, in reponse to audiences that were much more interactive, and more demanding than today--