No. Far from it. He was an avid reader, and was also taught Latin at school, so had a very good sound education. He was not a good actor, and so was encouraged to write, by others such as Christopher Marlowe, and so began to 'contribute' to ongoing plays. A line here, a word there, etc, until he felt able to write a play on his own . He has been called a plagiarist, that is, one who takes the ideas of others for his own work, but, they all 'took' from each other. Marlowe for instance, 'stole' Dr Faustus from a German author in 1583! Shakespeare's first offering, was probably something along the lines of a comedy, as that gave him room to examine humanity to the extent he wanted to. Experts argue over his first work, to this day! However, it is generally recognised that it was one of the 'Henry VI' plays. This was written after Shakeapeare consulted at least two documents. Raphael Holinsheads 'Chronicle', and Edward Hall's 'Chronicle'. Few of the plays attributed to Shakespeare, were originally by him.
