'Romeo and Juliet' was based on a preexisting narrative poem

Shakespeare’s plays were first published together in 1623 after his death

Most of his plays were written for the stage, so it took his admirers to compile the play texts posthumously in 1623. This became the famous “First Folio,” the basis of Shakespeare’s literary posterity.

Several bestsellers began as fan fiction

Ali Hazlewood's "The Love Hypothesis" began as "Star Wars" fan fiction. Cassandra Clare's "Mortal Instruments" series was about "Harry Potter" characters Draco Malfoy and Ginny Weasley. Anna Todd's "After" series was an example of "real life fiction," or fan fiction that is about real people rather than fictional ones (the books were originally based on the boy band One Direction).

No, Shakespeare didn't write the Bible

Some believe Shakespeare helped write the King James Bible—and left his name hidden in Psalm 46. The evidence seems uncanny… but the truth is much less dramatic.

Critics often use the word ‘Shakespearean’ to describe a dramatic story

Calling something “Shakespearean” often denotes a high-quality work of art or a story that recalls one of the Bard’s plays.

How Shakespeare changed the sonnet

A sonnet is a rigid poetic form from the Renaissance, featuring 14 lines, a consistent meter (or beat) and rhyme scheme, and a noticeable thematic shift known as a "volta." Shakespeare popularized a form featuring three four-line stanzas and a rhyming couplet, departing from the Petrarchan two-part structure of eight- and six-line stanzas.

'Roses are red, violets are blue' has a long, twisting history

The earliest known use of the phrase, a stock romance form used in greeting cards, is in Edmund Spenser's "The Faery Queen" from 1590 (excerpt below). By 1785, Joseph Ritson updated the verse and connected it to Valentine's Day, creating a cliché that's still used today.

‘Beowulf’ is a foundational text for modern fantasy

The story is the earliest surviving poem in the English language and enshrined many Anglo-Saxon ideals about heroism, loyalty, and adventure. JRR Tolkein was an enthusiastic fan of the poem, even lecturing about it in 1936, and mirrored many of its themes in “Lord of the Rings.” Critics have also highlighted the influence on later fantasy stories, including “Harry Potter.”

Rome's legendary founders Romulus and Remus were raised by a she-wolf

Romulus and Remus escaped slaughter by drifting downriver in a basket. Once ashore, the two were nurtured by a wolf and woodpecker, growing strong enough to build Rome. This story may date back to the fourth century BCE and contains Roman and Greek elements.

Many literary scholars consider 'The Tale of Genji' to be the first novel

While the definition of a "novel" is sometimes disputed, most literary historians consider the first novel to be "The Tale of Genji," an epic story written by Murasaki Shikibu in the 11th century that offered a psychological exploration of Hikaru Genji. Though not widely distributed outside of Japan until it was translated into English in 1925, Shikibu's story had a profound impact on Virginia Woolf.

Broadway's songwriters began experimenting in the 1920s

Broadway’s early decades were heavily influenced by opera and vaudeville, but songwriters in the 1920s began exploring more narrative-based songwriting and psychologically complex characters. That trend would continue in the following decades, though it would evolve in even more nuanced ways.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, and became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, but became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

Some allege that Dylan plagiarized his Nobel Prize lecture

The speech bore striking similarities to entries on SparkNotes, a summary site that's often used by students looking to skip assigned reading. Neither Dylan nor his management commented on the matter, though some critics suggested it was just another part of Dylan's career-long performance.

The first surviving opera tells the story of Orpheus and Euridice

Jacopo Peri's “Euridice,” premiered in 1600, is the oldest surviving opera. The story is based on the Greek mythology tale about a musician named Orpheus who attempts to save his wife from the underworld by pleasing the god Hades with his musical talents.

Robert Browning memorialized the marathon myth in a 19th-century poem

The story of Pheidippides is not likely true, but that hasn’t stopped the story from spreading. Much of that is thanks to Robert Browning, who enshrined the myth for a new generation in a 1879 poem that described the man dying after delivering word of the victory.

Exploring the work of Frances Burney, one of Jane Austen's main influences

Jane Austen is often credited with pioneering the narrative technique of "free indirect discourse," in which a narrator embodies a character's style without using the first-person perspective. But this essay argues Burney is the real innovator and that Austen, a fan of Burney's, continued using the technique to more acclaim.

''Twas the Night Before Christmas' was published anonymously with a different title

A decade after it came out, Clement Clarke Moore accepted credit for the rhyming holiday tale. Some still believe that Henry Livingston, Jr. is the author, but evidence largely points to Moore.

Caesar's true betrayer wasn't Brutus but Decimus, a conspirator history forgot

It was Decimus—not Brutus—who was closest to Caesar, dined with him the night before his murder, and talked him out of skipping the Senate meeting on the Ides of March when Caesar grew suspicious. This article argues that in his play named after the Roman dictator, Shakespeare immortalized the wrong man. Decimus was captured and executed within two years; Brutus and Cassius took slightly longer to meet their ends.

'The Dark Night Rises' was inspired by 'A Tale of Two Cities'

The 2012 Batman film makes several allusions to the Dickens novel, with one character even holding a copy of the book in a final scene. Director Christopher Nolan and his brother (and screenwriter) Jonathan Nolan frame Gotham as a place of inequity, much like Dickens does with London and Paris. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

Why so many romance stories take place in Regency-era England

The British Regency era lasted less than a decade, but it remains a popular setting for romance stories, including for Julia Quinn's "The Duke and I," the novel that became Netflix's "Bridgerton." Scholars note that the period's strict social hierarchy, high fashion, and aristocratic traditions are ripe for the romance genre's tropes.

Humans have speculated about alien life since ancient times

Around 50 B.C.E., Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius shared the idea that alien life was possible, which was put forth by Greek philosopher Epicurus. The writing is believed to be the first straightforward assertion in Western literature that aliens must exist.

The bloody history of the true crime genre

The true crime genre appears to have crawled out of an unlocked closet between 1550 and 1700. Rising literacy rates and printing technologies during this period led to leaflets and ballads-turned-broadsides that graphically regurgitated the findings. These products often included woodcuts of the crime's "unsavory acts.". Such content was snapped up by the "artisan class and above" as poorer classes lacked the funds to fuel the hobby.

The term ‘mortgage’ was born out of the French word for ‘dead pledge’

Borrowing money to buy a house has been a global practice since the Romans in the fifth century BCE. But before the mortgage, there was the “dead pledge,” which labeled the property as “dead” to the borrower until they paid off their loan to the lender.

Raphael's 'School of Athens' visually contrasts the views of Plato and Aristotle

As part of a commission from Pope Julius II to decorate his private library (and while Michelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel), Raphael created four frescoes representing different branches of knowledge: theology, philosophy, law, and poetry. "The School of Athens" depicted philosophy, staging classic thinkers Plato and Aristotle alongside others from intellectual history.

Mozart's 'The Marriage of Figaro' satirizes aristocratic privilege

“The Marriage of Figaro” tells a tale about young lovers, deception, and dynamics between the aristocracy and their servants. Critiquing French society just years before the French Revolution began, this rebellious work of art experienced wild success while also being the subject of censorship and bans in the late 1700s.

Most of the ‘Super Mario Bros.’ sequel was borrowed from a preexisting Nintendo game

Nintendo was eager to create a sequel following the success of “Super Mario Bros.,” but the original “Super Mario Bros. 2,” released in Japan, proved too difficult. Crunched for time, the company used the bones of a preexisting game, “Doki Doki Panic,” and inserted elements from Mario’s world for the US release of “Super Mario Bros. 2,” making for a follow-up that was drastically different from its predecessor.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

The Dracula character, now seen as the vampire archetype, was inspired by a seafood-induced nightmare its creator experienced.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

'Saturday Night Fever,' the 1977 film that introduced disco to the mainstream, was based on a fabricated magazine story.

Learn more about the history of fireworks, which dates back to an accidental invention during an alchemist's quest for information about immortality.

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.

The first robot in literature may have been a 'mechanical man' in 1907's 'Ozma of Oz,' a book in L Frank Baum's 'Wizard of Oz' series.

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

Trace how the Bill of Rights, inspired by centuries of political theory, took shape between 1774 and 1789.

Stanford built a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, revealing how much it cost to travel in the ancient world

Before writing 'Walden,' transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau nearly burned down his hometown with a campfire that grew out of control.

The first horror movie is believed to be George Méliès' 1986 short 'The Haunted Castle,' which pioneered the use of special effects

The 19th-century painters of the Hudson River School were among the first American romantics, with portraits that displayed the natural beauty of the young country.

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

Elk Cloner, the first computer virus to spread in public, was written as a practical joke by Richard Skrenta, a Pittsburgh high school student.

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

Volcanic activity may have triggered the Black Death by spewing gases that led to crop failures in Europe, thus forcing the import of grain ships with plague-infested fleas.

Many legends about George Washington, including his supposed wooden teeth and the story of cutting down the cherry tree, lack evidence.

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight

Poison ivy's characteristic rash is caused by an allergic response to an oily compound in the plant called urushiol.

The first line of 'immortal' human cells, which can divide indefinitely and are used in scientific research, was nonconsensually taken from a Black woman.

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

A small portion of The Winstons' 'Amen, Brother,' an obscure '60s gospel record, is the basis for thousands of hip-hop tracks, making it one of the most sampled records ever that's informally known as 'the Amen break.'