What new idea did William shakespeare put forth?

Answer 1

A man called Harold Bloom wrote a book called "William Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human" in which he falls short of claiming that Shakespeare invented the human race but does make the rather large claim that Shakespeare invented characterization in drama. It's a claim that holds no water even though Shakespeare's characters are more subtle and layered than those of his earliest contemporaries. Bloom claims that Shakespeare's characters exist outside of the context of the plays they are in. This makes no sense: we would not know the characters without the plays.

In short, Shakespeare's ideas were not new, but he did what he did better and more expertly than most playwrights before or since.