Who inspired William Shakespeare?

Answer 1

This question could mean more than one thing.

Where did he get his plot ideas from? Almost all of his plots are taken from books he read or plays he saw.

What inspired his sonnets? They are written to several people. One imagines that his relationship with these people or their character was what inspired him to write what he did.

What inspired the characters he created? These were surely developed from the people he met and interacted with. Shakespeare had a remarkable facility for observing and learning many things about many kinds of people and the lives they led.

Why did Shakespeare write at all? It was his job; it was how he made enough money to support his wife and children in Stratford.

Answer 2

Shakespeare wrote the play Hamlet, and it had absolutely nothing to do with his son Hamnet. The main character in the story of Hamlet was called that years before Shakespeare was born. The Hamlet story goes back to a semi-legendary account by the historian Saxo Gramatticus. It was also probably the subject of an earlier Elizabethan play which is now lost.

The character Hamlet has no more to do with Shakespeare's son than the character of King John has to do with his father, or the character of Anne Bullen has to do with his wife. King John is called that because that was the name of the king. Shakespeare wrote about him (and Anne Bullen and Hamlet) because he thought it would make a good play and someone had already written the story.