Expand, Reuse, Recycle Katie Byars

From what I have read/seen of Shakespeare (I have only read Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and now some of Hamlet, but I watched a Midsummer`s Night Dream) it seems that he tended to reuse a lot of elements in different ways. As Will pointed out in his blog Claudius' soliloquy and Lady Macbeth after she went crazy have very similar lines, yet these two have very different roles to play in the story Lady Macbeth spurs on her husband for power and later shows up as more grief for the protagonist and Clausius murders his brother for power and serves as a villain that the protagonist needs to outwit and kill. Ghosts also play a big part in the story. The only ghost that used to be human in Macbeth served to show Macbeth`s guilt and him going slightly crazy as well as drive him to be more reckless. The ghost here comes to drive Hamlet to kill his uncle for revenge. Also, Hamlet uses the play to show how he thought events transpired and to prove his uncle`s guilt and in A Midsummer`s Nights Dream at the very end of the play, the actors watch yet a cheaper and more comedic version of what transpired. In Romeo and Juliet, I guess Romeo had to flee like the heir to the previous throne in Macbeth. The last one is weak, but I did not enjoy Romeo and Juliet as much so I do not remember it well. The point is I think that Shakespeare used very similar characters and put them in different roles with different settings to create a new play. Some times this is done badly and you can get too formulaic which is the criticism many books can get but in my opinion, I think Shakespeare managed to pull it off. He only used repeats in a different way instead of in the same role. Claudius and Lady Macbeth have very different roles yet they act in the same way. Hamlet chose to pretend to go mad instead of going mad with guilt. The other reason he is successful is Shakespeare also added new elements and characters to the story instead of relying on only reusing. The only element to Shakespeare`s writing that I both hate and enjoy (other than his old English words which I enjoy but find it hard to follow at times) is how stupid everyone can be. The stupidity shows how human the characters in the play can be, but at times you just want to shove them out of the story and show them how to actually do it. Hamlet is a good example of both with his indecisiveness. Macbeth is a better balance of you know its wrong and going to fail it is on how. Romeo and Juliet I wanted to knock out.