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University Wits in English Literature – Characteristics

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Introduction

University Wits is a phrase used to describe a group of late 16th-century English playwrights and pamphleteers who were educated at renowned universities Oxford and Cambridge and went on to become prominent secular writers. Their education influenced their writing and made them distinctive figures in the literary world at the time. They contributed to both English literature and theatre. The University Wits became instrumental in shaping the early English Renaissance period. Their works aided the progress of English drama and prose. Due to their professional education, the University Wits are identified as among the earliest professional writers in English. They prepared the way for the writings of several well-known playwrights including William Shakespeare.

The University Wits were known for linguistic innovation, bringing classical learning to literature and facilitating a cultural change in the literary landscape of the time. They were known for their fondness of heroic themes and tales. For this reason, several characteristics were commonly found among these writers. Their works tended to have powerful and declarative lines, glorious epithets, and powerful declamation. There was a noticeable lack of humour in these early dramas; if humour was included it was usually coarse and not sophisticated.

Meaning and Origin

These late 16 th century writers were called the University Wits since they had all completed professional and sophisticated education from universities like Oxford and Cambridge. This term however was not used during their lifetime. George Saintsbury , a 19th-century journalist and author coined this term. He argued that the University Wits were inspired by the academic dramas of Thomas Sackville and by the popular but miscellaneous theatre which was written by nameless writers. He said that University Wits gave the English literature its “magna carta”. He did believe that while University Wits with Marlowe at their head managed to contribute to theatre, they failed to achieve perfect lifelikeness. Later “University Wits” was taken up by many writers in the 20th century to refer to the group of authors listed by Saintsbury

Characteristics

1) Educational Background: One common element amongst all University Wits was that they received a classical education at prominent institutions like the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Adolphus William Ward in The Cambridge History of English Literature (1932) in a chapter dedicated to the Wits said that they combined pride in university training which amounted to arrogance” was combined with “really valuable ideas and literary methods”. These influenced their literary explorations.

2) Classical Influence: Due to their university education, the Wits were introduced to several classics; including ancient Greek and Roman literature as well. As a result, they were inspired by classical literature, philosophy, and rhetoric. They also used several classical myths and stories in their works and incorporated classical themes, allusions, and forms into their works.

3) Blank Verse: Blank verse is an unrhymed line of iambic pentameter in English drama. Christopher Marlowe an influential University Wit was known to popularize blank verse. Soon these blank verses became standard in Jacobean and Elizabethan drama which allowed for more expressive dialogue.

4) Influence on Shakespeare: Perhaps the most prominent playwright in English literature, the Bard of Avon himself was influenced by the University Wits. Marlowe particularly had a great impact on Shakespeare. Plays like “Doctor Faustus” by Marlowe and Kyd’s “The Spanish Tragedy” had influenced some of his plays. Shakespeare himself was born only four months after Marlowe.

5) Literary Innovation: Some University Wits were known to have introduced several literary innovations, these literary forms created a characteristic style. For example, John Lyly introduced an innovative prose style “Euphues” known for its elaborate language and parallelism. These innovations were significant in the development of the English prose.

6) Prolific Writers: Writers who create several works are labelled prolific writers. Robert Greene and Thomas Nashe were some well-known University Wits who were prolific writers. They produced several works in their time including prose romances, plays and pamphlets. These writers also addressed contemporary and social issues. So not only did they produce a great number of products, their works were diverse and explorative.

7) Dramatic Innovations: It is well known that University Wits introduced novel styles and forms that moved away from the former medieval morality plays and mystery plays. They played a critical part in the development of English drama by contributing new themes, ideas and styles. University Wits featured characters with complex morals, themes of tragedy, vengeance and elaborate plots.

8) Themes: The themes used by University Wits differed substantially from their predecessors. Some of the themes that were characteristic of University Wits were:

Tragedy: Tragedy was at the forefront of dramatic exploration for University Wits. It was prominently journeyed by well-known Wits like Marlowe, Kyd and many others. Most of the plays conclude with the downfall or demise of the protagonists. This reflected the tragic sensibility that was popular in the era.

Political and Historical Themes: Famously University Wits dramatically used historical events. For example, Robert Greene’s “Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay,” incorporated several political, historical and social themes.

Social Critique: University Wits used their works to provide social critique on society. They offered social commentary by including satirical elements that would point out societal flaws and the follies of human nature. George Peele’s “The Battle of Alcazar” for example served as a commentary on the consequences of war.

Love and Desire: While themes like revenge, political commentary, heroism and retribution were extensively explored by University Wits, desire and love were also a frequented theme. Marlowe’s “Hero and Leander” and Thomas Nashe’s prose work “The Unfortunate Traveller” are some examples where these writers explored romantic adventures.

Power and Ambition: University Wits had a known fondness for heroism and heroic tales. Naturally, power and ambition were themes that were explored. Characters often sought power, through memes like military conquest, magic or political invasions. The pursuit of power and the consequences of ambitions were recurring themes in the works of University Wits.

Religion and Hersey: Several diverse themes were included by University Wits including the subject of religion and heresy. For example, Marlowe’s “Doctor Faustus” questioned the frontiers of faith and the result of challenging religious orthodoxy.

Human Nature and Morality: The University Wits, particularly Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd, probed into explorations of human nature. Their plays displayed the complexities of human deeds and the consequences of moral as well as the inner struggles of their characters.

Revenge: Among the University Wits, Thomas Kyd’s “The Spanish Tragedy” is often quoted as a before time example of a revenge tragedy. This genre would later go on to gain immense popularity. Kyd’s play explored the themes of retribution, righteousness, and the moral complexities of seeking vengeance.

9) Literary Devices: These are some of the literary devices that were used by University Wits:

Satire and Irony: The Wits employed comedy and humour to remark on political, social, and moral issues of the time. These were used to draw critiques on society and morality.

Foreshadowing: Foreshadowing was used to hint at future events, adding depth to the plot and aiding character development.

Rhetorical Devices: Diverse forms of rhetorical devices such as parallelism, antithesis, and anaphora were employed by the wits to create persuasive speeches and enhance the overall eloquence of the work.

Monologues: The university wits frequently used monologues to create impressive speeches, impactful scenes or engaging dialogues. This allowed for the introspection of the character and conveyed the characters’ internal conflicts, desires, and motivations.

Metaphor: A famous metaphor used by the University Wits is from Robert Greene’s “Pandosto” “Thou whose bright eyes make the dark world double.” Metaphors were a frequently used device to create depth and enhance dialogues.

Wordplay: Wordplay and the use of puns were employed to include humour and increase the depth of the language. Devices of wordplay involved double meanings and witty word choices which contributed to the overall richness of their works.

Soliloquy: A Soliloquy is an elaborate speech that is delivered by a character alone on the stage. Several writers from the Wits included intricate Soliloquies in their works. Marlowe’s “Doctor Faustus” included a famous soliloquy delivered by the protagonist that revealed his inner thoughts and emotions.

Allusion: The University Wits were the first generation of writers to be professionally educated and hence were exposed to works of classics hence they frequently made references to classical mythology. Allusions added depth and cultural resonance to their writing. It appealed to audiences with a classical education.

Chiaroscuro: A frequently used technique it involves contrasting light and dark elements. It was done not only in the visual aspects of the stage but also in the characterization and moral themes of their works. This contributed depth and complexity to narratives.

Double Entendre: Double Entendre is similar to puns and wordplay where a form of wordplay is employed, to convey two meanings simultaneously. Often one of the meanings is risqué or humorous.

Parallel Plots: Some plays created by the University Wits featured parallel plots. Here two or more storylines ran in tandem. This device was versatile and allowed for the searching of different themes, and character interactions and increasing storyline complexity positively.

Character Foils: The use of character foils is a literary instrument that highlights characters in light with one another. University Wits used this device to contrast characters that highlight each other’s qualities and flaws. This added intricacy to the characters and enhanced the holistic narrative.

Paradox: These self-contradictory statements were used to express a deeper truth by the University Wits. This famous line from Christopher Marlowe’s “Tamburlaine” is an example of a paradox: “Ere supper and your stomachs served, you’ll swear Your hunger away.”

Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593):

Marlowe was the most prominent of the University Wits. His contributions to English drama are celebrated for their dramatic innovations and moral complexity. His most notable works include “Doctor Faustus,” “Tamburlaine,” and “The Jew of Malta.” Marlowe was skilled in employing blank verse and the use of dramatic and poetic language.

Thomas Kyd (1558-1594):

Kyd is best known for his work “The Spanish Tragedy”. It is considered one of the fist examples of revenge tragedy. His work has been prominent in that particular genre. He explored the complexities of human nature and morality. Kyd focused on revenge, divine intervention, justice and morals.

Robert Greene (1558-1592):

A prolific writer, Greene was known for his prose romances and pamphlets. He dipped into several themes and genres in the wide range of works he created. Greene was one of the earliest professional authors in England. Famous works by him include “Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay” and “Pandosto,” both believed to have inspired William Shakespeare.

George Peele (1556-1596):

Peele frequently wrote historical plays and was known for adopting historical tales to context. “Edward I” and “The Battle of Alcazar” are known as his most renowned works. He explored themes like ambition, power, war and authority.

John Lyly (1553-1606):

Lyly’s writings were characterized by an ornate and elaborate style of prose. Exploring themes of love, manners, and wit, he gained great influence at the time. His best-known works include “Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit” and its sequel “Euphues and His England.”

Thomas Nashe (1567-1601):

Nashe engaged themes of love, desire and social satire. He was a satirist, pamphlete, and playwright who contributed immense novelty to English literature. “Pierce Penniless,” a satirical work brought him a lot of acclaim.

Other Writers:

Michael Drayton (1563-1631)
Anthony Munday (1560-1633)
John Lydgate (c. 1370-1451)
Robert Wilmot (c. 1570-1634)
Thomas Middleton (1580-1627)

The legacy of the University Wits is undeniable, as they set the stage for the golden age of English literature, moving away from medieval morality and mystery plays to explore more complex characters and plots the University Wits ushered in a prominent phase in English Literature. They were known for their linguistic innovation, the popularization of blank verse, and a strong influence on their contemporary, William Shakespeare. Their works reflected the moral complexities of human nature while delving into complicated themes.

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UNIVERSITY WITS – transitory playwrights who set preclude to realistic literature in Elizabethan age

By: Aniruddh Shastree

Abstract: ‘University Wits’ is a title given to a group of writers of the late 16 th Century England by a 19 th Century Scholar named George Saintsbury. These writers were educated either from Oxford or Cambridge Universities and wrote plays to earn their livelihood. In spite of the fact that these writers wrote without any patronage and had led short and stormy life, their importance in the history of English literature is due to their outstanding contribution towards the transformation of the theme of literature that was limited to puritanistic and moralistic writing. They chose to write in a more realistic yet didactic, heroic yet based on the real life problems of the everyday lives of individuals.

This essay tries to explore the works which not only enriched the English Literature through their plays with varied themes such as revenge, passion, comedy, historical and tragedy, imaginative and romantic proze but also helped in raising the standards of literature by improving the coherence of language and structure of plot construction through their literary works, as well as setting a preclude for the writers of the later ages of the English Literature.

Key words: University Wits, Elizabethan era, revenge and passion plays, transitory playwrights, heroic tragedies.

Introduction As Crompton Rickett States, “University Wits are transitory playwrights between 15 th and 16 th century …. They form a connecting link between the Morality and Miracle Plays which were written between the 12 th and 14 th century and ‘Realistic plays’ later in the 15 th century, which had ‘passion’ and ‘revenge’ as major themes’…”. (i)

The term ‘University Wits’ , was a name given to a group of Elizabethan playwrights by George Saintsbury (ii) – a 19th-century journalist, English writer, literary historian, scholar, critic and author. They were a bunch of writers associated with either Oxford or Cambridge University came forward in the literary canvas with their handful of contribution in the field of drama during the Elizabethan age (1550 AD – 1620 AD).

This group consisted of seven writers namely,

(1) Cristopher Marlowe (1564 AD – 1593 AD), (2) John Lyly (1554 AD -1606 AD), (3) George Peele (1556 AD – 1596 AD), (4) Robert Greene (1558 AD – 1592AD), (5) Thomas Nashe (1567 AD – 1601 AD), (6) Thomas Lodge (1557-1625), (7) Thomas Kyd (1558-1594). These were succeeded by William Shakespeare, Flether, Ben Johnson, in the Elizabethan Era.

University Wits were poets and Playwrights with a philosophical bent of mind; they wrote plays for earning their livelihood and were not patronized by anyone.

Renaissance Drama began with the decline of Protestantism and Morality plays. Moralities were over taken by secular thoughts and reformers used morality to portray their own views. Secular morality took a long step to form rudimentary comedy called ‘Interludes’. (iii) Interludes were sketches of a nonreligious nature, some plays were called interludes that are today classed as morality plays. John Heywood, one of the most famous interlude writers, brought the genre to perfection in his The Play of the Wether (1533) and The Playe Called the Foure P.P. (c. 1544). (iv)

John Heywood (1497 AD – 1575 AD),was a playwright whose short dramatic interludes helped put English drama on the road to the fully developed stage comedy of the Elizabethans. He replaced biblical allegory and the instruction of the morality play with a comedy of contemporary personal types that illustrate everyday life and manners. (v)

The plays of the University Wits had several features in common: Most of the writers that are clubbed under the title of ‘University Wits’ were more or less acquainted with each other, and most of them have led irregular and stormy lives. Their plays have several common features: (vi)

a) There was a fondness for heroic themes, such as the great figures of ‘Tamburlaine’ in the play, ‘Tamburlaine the Great’. It is a play written in two parts by Christopher Marlowe. It is loosely based on the life of the Central Asian emperor, Timur. (Tamerlane/Timur the Lame, d. 1405).

b) Heroic themes needed heroic treatment: great fullness and variety; splendid descriptions, long swelling speeches, and handling violent incidents and emotions. These qualities, excellent when held in restraint, only too often led to loudness and disorder.

c) Their style was also ‘heroic’. Their chief aim was to achieve strong and sounding lines, magnificent epithets and powerful declamation. This again led to abuse and mere bombast, mouthing, and in worst cases to nonsense. One of the best examples of such a case is in Marlowe’s work, the result of which is quite impressive.

d) The themes were usually tragic in nature, for the dramatists were as a rule too much in earnest to give heed to what was considered to be the lower species of comedy.

Elizabethan age dramas are a series of improvements upon 14 th century plays and Caucer’s literature and towards the end of the age, literature becomes realistic and puritan in theme. The most significant representatives of the writers of real comedies is Lyly, who in such plays as ‘Alexander and Campaspe’ (1584 AD), ‘Endymion’ (1592 AD), and ‘The Woman in the moon’, gives us the first examples of romantic comedy. (vii)

Lets discuss these dramatists in detail.

(1) Cristopher Marlowe (1564-1595)

A Cambridge graduate and the most important pre –Shakesperean dramatist, Cristopher Marlowe is famous for his quality of ‘Didacticism’ in his tragic plays. Marlowe’s characteristic “mighty line” (as Ben Jonson called it) established blank verse as the staple medium for later Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatic writing. (viii)

His tone and language might be compared with that of Thomas Grey, Collins, P.B.Shelley and Keats in terms of their moods which were of pensiveness, romantic sadness, or indolence, as well as ecstatic delight, which can be observed in their great odes and poems.

Marlowe was a real source of guidance for Shakespeare for writing great plays in blank verse. His works contained music that was in harmony with Milton’s works. His blank verse was metrically precise, regular, and contained imagery not introduced in English poetry at that time. He also introduced genuine blank verse and tragedy in literature and paved the way for Shakespeare to follow. (ix)

‘F.S.Boas’ in his book titled, “Shakespeare and his predecessors’ mentions on several occasions, which can be summed up as , ‘As a precursor to William Shakespeare, all plays of Marlowe can be labelled as ‘Revenge’ and ‘Passion’ plays, according to their themes’.

Marlowe’s major plays are: 1-Tamburline, 2- Edward II , 3- Doctor Faustus, 4- The Jew of Malta. John Webster, a ‘Restoration age’ playwright is believed to have revived Marlowe in his didactic tragic play titled, ‘The White devil’ and ‘Dutches of Malfi’.

Shakespeare is believed to have used these qualities of Marlowe in his four famous tragic plays 1- Othello, 2- Hamlet, 3- Macbeth, 4- King Lear.

As per ‘A.C.Bradley’, Marlowe and Shakespeare’s tragedy have one prime thing in common – “one hero of high social status …… due to his flaw in personality……..dies a tragic death at the end of the play”.

Reflections of Marlowe’s plays in Shakespeare’s plays.

Just like ‘Dr.Faustus’, who listened to ghosts for follow up of action ‘Hamlet’ too met the same fate as Dr. Faustus and died a pitiable death. ‘Macbeth’ of Shakespeare dies due to his quality of ‘overambition’ like Marlowe’s ‘Tamburline’ who dies at the end all to nothingness. ‘The Jew of Malta’ is a study of ‘Lust of Wealth’, and centres around money lender, a Jew – which is similar to the Character ‘Shylock’ in the Shakespeare’s play ,’Merchant of Venice’.

(2) John Lyly (1554-1606)

John Lyly is supposed to have been influenced by Nicholas Udhall’s Ralph Roister Doister(1553 AD), – a play that marks the emergence of English comedy from the medieval morality plays and earliest “proper” English stage comedy, having been written somewhere in the early 1550’s. (ix-a) which is presumed to have influenced Lyly’ play ‘Euphues-The Anatomy of wit’(1578 AD) – a proze romance. Udhall’s technique is also presumed to have influenced dramatist William Shakespeare’s plays namely ‘Much Ado about Nothing’, ‘All’s well that ends well’. At the same time, Gorbuduc- the first tragedy play written by Sackville and Norton might have influenced playwright Cristopher Marlowe in his play Tamburline and Edward II, and Thomas Kyd in his play Senecan tragedy titled,’Spanish Tragedy’-a revenge play.

John Lyly is known for his peculiar style of ‘Euphimism’, due to his pioneering efforts to write English fictional proze romance titled, ‘Euphues:The Anatomy of Wit’.

The Cambridge graduate John Lyly, looked to the court for his favour rather than his spectators. In contrast to him, George Peele looked to his audience for appreciation for his style of writings and popularity.

Lyly’s Contributions:

His famous plays are , 1-Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (1578) 2-Euphues and his England, 3-Sapho and Phao

Wyatt and Collins state that “Lyly’s greatest contribution to drama form is his writings in proze”.

Shakespeare is presumed to have used Lyly’s style of dialogue in his comedy plays namely,’Much Ado about Nothing’, ‘All’s well that ends well’, ‘Cymberline’. Similarities are noted between Lyly’s observations and experiences at Court of London and Court scenes in Shakespeare’s plays namely, ‘Merchant of venice’, ‘Othello’, ‘King Lear’.

Lyly’s comedies mark an enormous advance upon those of his predecessors in English drama. Their plots are drawn from classical mythology and legend, and their characters engage in euphuistic speeches redolent of Renaissance pedantry; but the charm and wit of the dialogues and the light and skillful construction of the plots set standards that younger and more gifted dramatists could not ignore. (x)

(3) George Peele (1559-1596)

This Oxford graduate, one of the University Wits playwriter left a legacy of ‘Pastoral Plays’, in his comic play, ‘The old Wives’ Tale’. (xi)

Peele, an Elizabethan dramatist who experimented in many forms of theatrical art: pastoral, history, melodrama, tragedy, folk play, and pageant.(xii) His lyrical lines in Play ‘An arraignment in Paris’ is presumed to have been used by Ben Johnson in his play ‘Volpone or the Fox’. According to E. Albert, “plot construction and use of blank verse lyrics are Peele’s original contributions”. ‘The Troublesome Reign of John, King of England’, is an Elizabethan history play, probably by George Peele, as the source and model that William Shakespeare employed for his own ‘King John’ (1591 AD) (xii-a)

His famous literary works include 1-The Battle of Alcazar (1589 AD); a chronicle history, 2-Edward I (1593 AD); a biblical tragedy, 3-The Love of King David and Fair Bethsabe (1594 AD); and his most enduring achievement, the fantastical comic romance 4-The Old Wives’ Tale (1591–94 AD), 5- The Troublesome Reign of John, King of England

One of his earliest work includes ‘The Arraignment of Paris (1581–84 AD), which is a mythological extravaganza written for the Children of the Chapel, a troupe of boy actors, and performed at court before Queen Elizabeth I. (xiii)

(4) Robert Greene (1558 AD – 1592AD)

Robert Greene, highly educated playwright, poet, and pamphleteer, born in 1558 and had masters from Cambridge in1583, and that another from Oxford in 1588. (xiv) A man of letters curiously mingling artistic and Bohemian sympathies and impulses with puritanic ideals and tendencies, who had been trained in the formal learning of an English university, he was greatly stimulated by the varied renascence influences, and, by them, in many cases, was led, not to greater liberty, but to greater licence of expression.(xv)

Greene wrote prose pastorals in the manner of Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia. The best of his pastorals is Pandosto (1588), the direct source of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale.(xvi)

Robert Greene’s play titled ‘Henry VI is a satire on extravaganza of the then King Henry VI, hence this play is also called a realistic play. It is thought that Robert Greene, among others, may have helped Shakespeare to develop the plot as well as writing some of the dialoguein Henry VI, Part 2 . (xvii)

As a dramatist, Greene’s specialty is his sincerity and real insight into the characters.

His major works include: 1- Pandosto (1588 AD) 2- Menaphon (1589) ,3- The ComicalHistory of Alphonsus, King of Aragon (1590 AD), 4- Greene’s Groats-worth of Wit (1592 AD), 5- The Honarable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay ( 1594 AD) 6- The History of Orlando Furioso (1594) 6- The Scottish History of James IV (1598 AD) (xviii)

It has been suggested that the fairy characters in his work ‘ The Scottish History of James the Fourth, Slain at Flodden (1590) inspired Shakespeare’s use of fairies in ‘ A Midsummer Night’s Dream . An earlier play , ‘ Pandosto (1588) ’ has a plot similar to Shakespeare’s later work, ‘ The Winter’s Tale ’ , suggesting the possibility of further influence on Shakespeare.

Greene is most familiar to Shakespeare scholars for his pamphlet Greene’s Groats-Worth of Wit, which alludes to a line, “O tiger’s heart wrapped in a woman’s hide”, found in Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 3 (c. 1591–92) (xviii)

Like Peele, Greene is also appreciated for his style of ‘wit’, ‘plot construction’ and ‘depiction of aristocratic life with a romantic setting’. Shakespeare is presumed to have used his style in his plays,’Comedy of Errors’ and ‘The Winters’ Tale’.

Arthur Crompton Rickett in his book titled, ‘History of English Literature’, states that, “Where Lyly excels in ‘literary polish’, Peele in ‘Melodic charm’ Greene achieves distinction in ‘humanization of his characterization’”.

(5) Thomas Nashe (1567 AD – 1601 AD)

A Graduate of Cambridge, this writer Used a free and extemporaneous prose style, full of colloquialisms , newly coined words, and fantastic idiosyncrasies, Nashe buttonholes the reader with a story in which a need for immediate entertainment seems to predominate over any narrative structure or controlling objective.(xix) Author: Steve Sohmer in his book : ‘Reading Shakespeare’s mind’ (xx) suggests that in the play titled, ‘As You Like It’, Shakespeare etched into Touchstone an effigy of Thomas Nashe. Further Sohmer states that, in Play titled, ‘Twelfth Night’, Shakespeare produced another, more highly developed portrait of Nashe as Feste – and thrust him back into conflict with his real-life nemesis Gabriel Harvey, whom Shakespeare cast as Malvolio – ‘He who wishes evil’ – the pretentious, over-ambitious steward.

His major works include: 1- The Unfortunate Traveller; or, The Life of Jacke Wilton (1594), the first ‘picaresque’ novel in English.2- Pierce Penniless his supplication to the devil,3- Christ’s Tears over Jerusalem,4- The Choice of Valentines .

His first publication, a preface to Robert Greene’s Menaphon , was an attack on the writings of his contemporaries. He probably wrote one or more of the anti-Puritan attacks on the Marprelate tracts. He became involved in prolonged literary battles, the best product of which is ‘ Pierce Penniless his supplication to the devil’ . His prose ranges from the pious ‘ Christ’s Tears over Jerusalem’ to his violent picaresque masterpiece, The ‘Unfortunate Traveller ’; his Ovidian romance, ‘ The Choice of Valentines’ , is a witty and obscene poem.(xxi) Nashe was drawn into a prolonged and bitter literary quarrel with Gabriel Harvey. (xxii)

Nashe was strongly anti-Puritan and this together with his natural combativeness drew him into the Marlprelate controversy: An Almond for a Parrot (1590) is now widely accepted as his along with a number of pseudonymous pamphlets. (xxii) His vivid social satire, ‘Pierce Penniless’ was the most successful of Nashe’s pamphlets and went through three editions in 1592. The Unfortunate Traveller (1594 AD) relating the knavish adventures of Jack Wilton is an important example of picaresque fiction and had a considerable influence on the development of the english novel. Nashe was also part-author (along with Ben Jonson among others) of The Isle of Dogs, which was judged by the authorities to be seditious and thus Nashe was forced to flee from London.(xxiii). In his writings he reveals the conflict in cultural standards which arose between the humanist values of civility and eloquence and the racy vigor of popular folk-tradition.(xxiv)

(6) Thomas Lodge (1557-1625)

Thomas Lodge, son of Lord mayor of London in 1562, was an English dramatist, proze writer and physician (xxv), who is best remembered for the prose romance Rosalynde , the source of William Shakespeare’s play, ‘ As You Like It’ .( xxvi)

His major literary works include 1- An Alarm Against Usurers (1584), 2-Scillaes Metamorphosis (1589), 3- Scillaes Metamorphosis (1589), 4- Euphues shadow (1592), 5- Wounds of Civil War (1594) , 6- A Margaraite of America (1596), 7- A Treastise of the Plague (1603) (xxvii)

Thomas Lodge is known for his romantic treatment of classical subject in his play titled, ‘Rosalynde’, which might have influenced Shakepeare in making of his play titled, ‘As you like it’. His Rosalynde is accessible in Hazlitt’s Shakespeare’s Library (vol. ii.) and elsewhere. Its relation to Shakespeare’s comedy is exhaustively discussed in an essay by Delius in the Jahrbuch of the German Shakespeare Society (1871). (xxviii) His ‘Scillaes Metamorphosis’ (1589), an Ovidian verse fable, is one of the earliest English poems to retell a classical story with imaginative embellishments, and it strongly influenced Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis. (xxix)

Lodge took degrees of B.A and M.A from Oxford. His literary work ‘An Alarum against usurers’(1584), exposed the ways in which money lenders used to lure young heirs into extravagance and debt. This literary piece is known to have inspired another University Wits writer named Thomas Nashe.

Lodge’s ‘Wounds of Civil War’

Lodge’s ‘Wounds of Civil War’ is an Elizabethan era’s stage play which is a dramatization of ancient Rome’s conflict between Roman General and Statesman named ‘Gaius Marius’(157 BC – 86 BC) who is known for bringing certain reforms in the Roman army (xxx) and an another Roman general and Statesman named ‘Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (138 BC – 78 BC), who rose to prominence during the war against ‘Numidian King named Jugurtha’, where he fought under the command of Gaius Marius . His relationship with Marius soured during the conflicts that would follow and lead to a rivalry which would only end with Marius’ death . (xxxi)

Lodge had adapted the story from Appian’s Roman History, translated in 1578 as ‘An Auncient Historie and Exquisite Chronicle of the Romanes Warres’, a translation that was probably also consulted by Shakespeare when he wrote Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra. (xxxii)

The beginning of rivalry is seen in the play when the senators line up one after another to cast their vote for Marius, who accepts the office on their authority. When the senate does exercise its authority and appoints Marius as general, Sulla stages an armed insurrection and seizes power. In refusing to accept Marius’s election, Sulla asserts that his own worth and honour count far more than those of his rival. …..

While Marius derives his authority from the republican senate, Sulla asserts that they should all be loyal to him. His ‘honour’, in the form of conquest and loot, should gain him military and political authority. Marius looks back to the most famous and successful republican general, who protected Rome from her most terrifying enemy in a dangerous and protracted war that led to the unchecked rise of Rome as the key power in the Mediterranean. Sulla, in contrast, places the military first as the mainspring of imperial Rome, the first step towards tyranny. (xxxiii)

Thomas Lodge’s prominent long poems and Fictions include 1- ‘ A Margarite of America (1586) and’,2- The Famous, True, and Historicall Life of Robert, Second Duke of Normandy (1591)’ amongst the many.

‘A Margarite of America (1596) was Thomas Lodge’s last work of imaginative writing, which he composed while he was on a voyage to South America with Sir Thomas Cavendish(1522 AD – 1592 AD). In this prose romance, Lodge describes the tragic love of Margarite, the daughter of King of Muscovy, for the treacherous and violent Arsadachus, the son of emporer Cusco, who eventually kills her, together with his wife Diana and their child. This piece of work is notable for its variety of visual spectacle and pageantry, its highly patterned poems, songs, and the unsparing savagery of many incidents.(xxxiv)

In his later life, he became a Roman catholic and graduated in Medicine from the University of Avignon in the year 1598 AD and further received another M.D. Degree from Oxford in the year 1602 AD. Thereafter he practiced medicine in London and Brussels.(xxxv)

Even while practicing medicine, he did not loose his love for creating literary pieces and wrote ‘A Treastise to Plague in year 1603 AD. He is known to have devoted to medicine and work for people affected with disease of Plague thereafter till his death in year 1625.

(7) Thomas Kyd (1558-1594)

Thomas Kyd, the son of a scrivener, Kyd was educated at the Merchant Taylors School in London. (xxxvi)

Thomas Kyd’s place in the history of English Renaissance drama is secured by one surviving play, The Spanish Tragedy, although there is evidence that Kyd wrote a play known simply as the Ur-Hamlet, which was the immediate source for William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.(xxxvii)

Kyd’s major works are: 1) Ur-Hamlet (c. 1589) , 2) The Spanish Tragedy (1592) , 3) Cornelia (1594), 4)The Truth of the Most Wicked and Secret Murdering of John Brewen (1592)

The rise of British sea superiority, demonstrated by both the British defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 and the extensive oceanic explorations of Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh; and the advancement of English theater to a popular and enduring art form, demonstrated by the works of William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe. (xxxviii)

In book, “Critical History of English Poetry”, by ‘Grieson Smith’, Spanish Tragedy is leabelled as ‘Romantic Melodrama’,

During the early months of 1593 he became involved in legal difficulties in connection with certain “lewd and malicious libels” directed against foreigners living in London. In the course of an investigation into these charges, incriminating papers of an “atheist” nature were discovered in Kyd’s lodgings.(xxxix) In around 1591 AD while Kyd was sharing lodgings with Christopher Marlowe, on May 13, 1593, he was arrested and then tortured in Bridgewell, being suspected of treasonable activity. His room had been searched and certain “atheistical” disputations denying the deity of Jesus Christ found there. He probably averred then and certainly confirmed later, in a letter, that these papers had belonged to Marlowe. He asserted that he knew nothing of this document and tried to shift the responsibility of it upon Marlowe, but he was kept in prison until after the death of that poet. He was dead by Dec. 30, 1594, when his mother made a formal repudiation of her son’s debt-ridden estate. (xL)

What German criticism calls the Ur-Hamlet, the original draft of the tragedy of the prince of Denmark, was a lost work by Kyd, probably composed by him in 1587. This theory has been very elaborately worked out by Professor Sarrazin, and confirmed by Professor Boas; these scholars are doubtless right in holding that traces of Kyd’s play survive in the first two acts of the 1603 first quarto of Hamlet, but they probably go too far in attributing much of the actual language of the last three acts to Kyd. Kyd’s next work was in all probability the tragedy of Soliman and Perseda, written perhaps in 1588 and licensed for the press in 1592, which, although anonymous, is assigned to him on strong internal evidence by Mr. Boas. His work was reprinted after Kyd’s death, in 1599. (xLi)

The Spanish Tragedy was long the best known of all Elizabethan plays abroad. It was acted at Frankfurt in 1601, and published soon afterwards at Nuremberg……. The importance of Kyd, as the pioneer in the wonderful movement of secular drama in England, gives great interest to his works, and we are now able at last to assert what many critics have long conjectured, that he takes in that movement the position of a leader and almost of an inventor. Regarded from this point of view, The Spanish Tragedy is a work of extraordinary value, since it is the earliest specimen of effective stage poetry existing in English literature. It had been preceded only by the pageant-poems of Peele and Lyly, in which all that constitutes in the modern sense theatrical technique and effective construction was entirely absent. These gifts, in which the whole power of the theatre as a place of general entertainment was to consist, were supplied earliest among English playwrights to Kyd, and were first exercised by him, in 1586. (xLii)

Conclusion:

Thus we can agree that, University wits, the notable group of pioneer English dramatists who wrote during the later years 16 th century and who transformed the native interlude and chronicle play with their plays of quality and diversity. (xLiii)

University Wits, thus, can be called as a group of university-educated playwrights who are often credited with transforming English drama in the 1500s in terms of especially in being an essential link to the development of plot construction, characterization, development of tragic form and representation of their times through their literary works.

Further , it can be said that, this group of writers can be considered a preclude, paving way for dramatist William Shakespeare to emerge, towering over all of them as he is presumed to have borrowed from the foundations that these authors set. They set the course for later Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, and they paved the way for Shakespeare.

They absorbed the new renaissance spirit and synthesized the vigour of the native tradition with more refined classicism. The constellation of University wits made the Elizabethan drama more popular with Renaissance humanism and pride of patriotism. English drama for the first time in their hands recognized its potentialities and exuberance. They wrote classical plays, courtly comedies, farces, chronicle plays, melodramas etc. They gave thrill, action, sensation, hum our and music.

It can thus be said that the education of these group of men at Oxford and Cambridge did impact and transform popular drama in the late 16th century especially in terms of improvement in the language and structure of drama, and plays became more complex, coherent, poetic, witty, and overall well-written.

References:

(i)https://www.britannica.com/topic/University-Wits, Last accessed on 02 Nov. 2019

(ii)https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803114744546, Last accessed on 02 Nov. 2019

(iii)https://www.britannica.com/art/interlude , Last accessed on 02 Nov. 2019

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(v)https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Heywood#ref 157087, Last accessed on 02 Nov. 2019

(vi)Edward Albert ‘History of English Literature’ (1955), page 89, https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.544236/page/n89, Last accessed on 02 Nov. 2019

(vii)Page 89, (point ‘a’ to ‘d’),‘History of English Literature’ by Edward Albert, Published by ‘George.G.Harrap Co. Ltd, Third edition, June 1955., Last accessed on 02 Nov. 2019

(viii)https://www.britannica.com/biography/Christopher-Marlowe, Last accessed on 02 Nov. 2019

(ix)https://literarydevices.net/christopher-marlowe/, Last accessed on 02 Nov. 2019

(ix-a)http://elizabethandrama.org/the-playwrights/plays-of-historical-importance/ralph-roister-doister-nicholas-udall/

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(xii)https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Peele, Last accessed on 02 Nov. 2019

(xii-a)F. E. Halliday, A Shakespeare Companion 1564–1964, Baltimore, Penguin, 1964; pp. 503-4 https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.204614/page/n503, Last accessed on 02 Nov.2019

(xiii)https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/ 9780192806871.001.0001/acref-9780192806871-e-308, Last accessed on 02 Nov. 2019

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(xix)https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Nashe, Last accessed on 02 Nov. 2019

(xx)Reading Shakespeare’s mind , By Steve Sohmer, ISBN: 978-1-5261-3807-1,Publisher: Manchester University Press, Published Date: June 2018

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(xxxii)Appian 1578; Lodge 1970: xiv-xviii; Schanzer 1956: xix-xxviii; Gillespie 2001: 15-20. See also Seagar 1994, also Andrew Hadfield, Shakespeare and Republicanism. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005; page 91, http://ojs.ub.gu.se/ojs/index.php/njes/article/view/50/54

(xxxiii)Title of Essay: Thomas Lodge and Elizabethan Republicanism, Authored by Andrew Hadfield, University of Sussex, Lodge the Republican Published in Vol 4, No 2 (2005)

Special Issue: Renaissance Drama excluding Shakespeare , The Nordic Journal of English Studies (NJES), Weblink: http://ojs.ub.gu.se/ojs/index.php/njes/article/view/50/54 ,Last accessed on 02 Nov. 2019

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(xL)https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Kyd,Last accessed on 02 Nov. 2019

(xLi)http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/kydbio.htm, Last accessed on 02 Nov. 2019

(xLii)http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/kydbio.htm, Last accessed on 02 Nov. 2019

(xLiii)https://www.britannica.com/topic/University-Wits#ref204601, Last accessed on 02 Nov. 2019

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University Wits in English Literature

The term “ University Wits ” is related to an association of English writers who thrived during the 16th and the early part of the 17th century under the influence of the Renaissanc e .

The writers who were part of this University Wits were Christopher Marlowe, John Lyly, George Peele, Thomas Lodge, Thomas Kyd, Thomas Nash, and Robert Greene . Although at times Thomas Kyd was not considered part of this group but his novelty and connection with them made Thomas Kyd one with them. All these University Wits had taken university education and had a good knowledge of classical learning as well. Marlowe, Kyd, and Greene were from Cambridge University; and Peele and Lodge were from Oxford University. They were all of noble birth and high status. It is noteworthy to mention that they did not employ the term “University Wits” in their lifetime but was formulated by George Saintsbury, a 19th century English writer and critic.

Contribution of University Wits in British Drama:

Christopher Marlowe: Marlowe was the greatest artistic persona and the most imposing playwrights among the University Wits. Although Marlowe’s dramatic career was very short but was illuminated with monumental accomplishments. Marlowe’s dramatic career begins with “Tamburlaine the Great” , which he wrote in his early twenties. After his first play, he wrote three memorable plays one after the other, such as “ The tragicall history of the life and death of Doctor Faustus ”, “Edward the Second” , and “The Jew of Malta” . Through these tragedies, we can learn about his dramatic talent. There is significant diversity in his subject matter, for example, history in “Edward the Second” , magic in “ Doctor Faustus ”, tragedy in “The Jew of Malta” , etc. His style is dynamic, energetic, and extremely poetic. If we talk about Marlowe’s one achievement, then it was his ability to combine drama and poetry. Marlowe’s dramas are rich with his dominant notion of tragic protagonists and presentation of the powerful internal conflict as also with moving poetry. The blank verse that was also used in “Gorboduc” , the first tragedy of English, was handled very well by Marlowe in his plays.

Impact of the University Wits on Shakespeare:

Needless to say, Shakespeare’s originality is beyond doubt, but the impact of the earlier dramatists on him is also distinctly visible. We can see glimpses of Marlowe in Shakespeare’s tragedies. Certainly, Marlowe’s tragedies do not exhibit the powerful internal conflict of Shakespeare’s famous protagonists like Hamlet , Othello, Macbeth, and so on. Nonetheless, Marlovian plays convey an outlook of the inner conflict to which a character is administered. It is believed that Marlowe’s “Edward II” has an explicit manifestation in Shakespeare’s “Richard II” particularly its dramatic tension and external conflict.

Conclusion:

There is no doubt that as a playwright Shakespeare is a genius but it is also true that there is no artist who is not inspired or influenced by anyone. Shakespeare was also influenced by his predecessors, whom we also call University Wits . So in the end we can say that English Drama started with University Wits and later Shakespeare took it to a level that was not exceeded in any other period. The University Wits transmitted poetic charm and elegance to British drama.

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History of English Literature

The university wits.

During the 16 th century English drama settled into a regular entertainment. The stage offered massive opportunities for the dramatists, but it remained in a state of chaos. In the 1580s group of playwrights, who had their education either from Oxford or Cambridge, stepped into the theatre as professional playwrights and reformed it for once and all. They are known as University Wits. The group includes—John Lyly, George Peele, Robert Greene, Thomas Lodge, Thomas Kyd and Marlowe. With their professionalism, while they rescued English drama from the medieval mire of religion, they also paved the way for Shakespeare. John Lyly was the leader of the group. His receptive mind was hospitable to the more delicate graces of literature. In a series of witty comedies – Campaspe, Sapho and Phao, Endymion, Midas he addressed Elizabeth in delicate flattery praising by turn the charms of the chastity of the woman, the chastity of the virgin, the majority of the queen. It was Lyly who was largely responsible for the first elaboration of romantic sentiment.

Lyly wrote in Euphuistic prose, artificial in structure and language, but refined in manner, witty and graceful. Lyly’s plays with their sparkle and courtly air the first artistic plays. They made ready the way for Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and As You Like It.

Like Lyly, George Peele flattered Elizabeth in his graceful pastoral, The arraignment of Paris. He used the same ornate manner in his scripture drama The Love of David and Fair Bathsabe in which he followed closely the Bible record. In his play Edward I, he turned to national history. He parodied the romanticists in The Old Wive’s Tale. By far the most original of the peoples’ plays was The Old Wive’s Tale which has a perfect charm of romantic humour.Robert Greene was a member of both the universities. He tried an imitation entitled Alphonsus after Marlowe’s Tamburlaine . His second play was written with Lodge and entitled The Looking Glass for London and England . It is a mixture of elements from the moralities and modern Elizabethan satire. Then there followed Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay and James IV. With Greene, we find a dramatic form in which realism and idealism meet.

Thomas Lodge was educated at Oxford. He was a facile writer and in a quick succession wrote two plays The Wounds of Civil War and A Looking Glass for London and England . But he is better known as the writer of euphuistic prose romance Rosalynde , the source for Shakespeare’s As You Like It . another University Wit, Thomas Nash is known for his Summers Last Will and Testament and The Unfortunate Traveller .

Among Shakespeare’s predecessors, Thomas Kyd and Marlowe occupy a permanent place. They were both influenced by Seneca, at the same time contributed something of their own towards the development of English tragedy. Though Kyd does not seem to have any of the universities, his contribution to drama is intrinsically as well as historically important. His Spanish Tragedy established itself as a lasting genre in the Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre in the form of revenge tragedy. [The central motive in the drama is the revenge of Hieronimo for the murder of his son, Horatio. The play is a well constructed; and Seneca’s ghosts and revenge themes have freely been borrowed.] He wrote forceful and capable dialogue. He also presented in the hero a new type of vacillating tragic hero.At the time of Marlowe’s arrival upon the English stage, the English drama was in a chaotic stage. It needed a great genius who could give the drama its shape, direction and stability. And this was fulfilled by Marlowe. In the first place, he raised the subject matter to a higher level. He provided heroic subjects which appealed to his imagination. In his person the spirit of Renaissance—boundless passion or knowledge, power and beauty was incarnated. His heroes are Tamberlaine, Dr. Faustus, Barabas, embodying passion for world conquest, knowledge and wealth respectively. He gave life and reality to these characters. In the next place , he gave the approval of his authority on the blank verse of the classical school and put aside the old rhyming lines of the Romantic or native drama, “ jigging veins of Rhyming mother-wits”, as he says in the Prologue to Tamburlaine .Marlowe also added to the conception of tragedy. He broke, partly with medieval conception in which tragedy was the fall of a great man. With him, as later with Shakespeare, tragedy results in catastrophe from some overweening feature of weakness of strength in the character himself. Here we see the medieval conception of the royalty of tragedy being supplanted by the Renaissance ideal of individual worth—virtue. Marlovian heroes are all governed by this virtue which leads them to ultimate tragedy. Marlowe was a great poet. His poetry raises crude medieval drama to the realm of high tragedy. The poignantly pathetic death scene of Faustus, the scene of King Edward at Kenilworth castle and the rapturous cry over the dying zenocrate remain permanently in the mind of the reader.

Literary Yog

University Wits

Table of Contents

Who are called the University Wits?

The University Wits were a group of English playwrights and poets who were active in the late 16th century, during the Elizabethan era. The term “University Wits” was coined by literary historian George Saintsbury in the 19th century to refer to a group of writers who were educated at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge and who were influential in the development of English drama.

The University Wits included Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, George Peele, John Lyly, and Robert Greene. These writers were known for their innovation and experimentation in drama and their use of blank verse, which was a new form of poetic meter that did not rhyme.

How many University Wits are there?

There are total seven University Wits in the group.

Who is the leader of University Wits?

There was no clear leader among the University Wits, as they were a loosely connected group of playwrights and poets rather than a formal organization. However, Christopher Marlowe is often considered the most influential and celebrated member of the group.

Marlowe’s plays, such as “Tamburlaine the Great” and “Doctor Faustus,” were groundbreaking in their use of blank verse, their exploration of complex psychological and philosophical themes, and their larger-than-life protagonists. Marlowe was also known for his wit and his ability to subvert traditional literary conventions, which made him a major figure in the development of English drama.

Who used the term University Wits?

The term “University Wits” was first used by the literary historian George Saintsbury in the 19th century to refer to a group of late 16th-century English playwrights who were educated at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge and who wrote plays for the London commercial theaters.

What is the importance of University Wits?

The University Wits were an important group of English playwrights who were active in the late 16th century. Their works had a significant impact on the development of English drama, and they helped to establish the commercial theater as a major cultural institution in London.

Some of the key contributions of the University Wits to English literature and drama include:

Advancing the art of dramatic writing: The University Wits were among the first English playwrights to write in the style of the classical authors of Greece and Rome, and they brought a new level of sophistication to English drama.

Creating memorable characters: The University Wits created some of the most memorable and iconic characters in English drama, such as Tamburlaine, Doctor Faustus, and Barabas in Marlowe’s plays.

Influencing other writers: The works of the University Wits had a significant influence on the writers who came after them, including William Shakespeare, who was heavily influenced by Marlowe’s works.

Contributing to the growth of the theater industry: The University Wits were instrumental in the growth of the theater industry in London, which became a major cultural and economic force during the Elizabethan era.

What are the characteristics of the university wits?

The University Wits were a group of English playwrights and poets who were active in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Some of the key characteristics of the University Wits include:

Education: The University Wits were highly educated, having attended prestigious universities such as Oxford and Cambridge.

Classical Influences: They were heavily influenced by classical literature and often incorporated classical themes and motifs into their works.

Drama: The University Wits were primarily known for their contributions to the development of English drama, particularly the Elizabethan stage. They were among the first to write plays in the English language, which helped to establish English drama as a literary genre.

Satire: Many of the University Wits used their plays to satirize contemporary society and social conventions. They were known for their sharp wit and biting commentary on the world around them.

Collaboration: The University Wits often collaborated with one another on their works, sharing ideas and refining each other’s writing.

Innovation: The University Wits were instrumental in the development of the early modern English language and helped to establish many of the conventions and techniques that are still used in English literature today.

Among Shakespeare’s predecessors, John Lyly, George Peele, Robert Greene, Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe were notable playwrights. Lyly, Peele and Greene wrote comedies while Kyd and Marlowe were tragedians who advanced English tragedy. The “University Wits” like Lyly and Marlowe had strong classical learning and brought new life to the English drama.

John Lyly achieved success as a playwright with his prose romance Euphues before writing popular comedies like Campaspe, Gallathea, and Endimion. His comedies drew inspiration from myths and legends, showcasing his inventive situations and vivid dialogues. Though Lyly’s plays lacked strong plotting and characterization, he introduced innovations to English drama in three key ways.

He introduced prose dialogue into original English comedy for the first time, marking a departure from earlier doggerel and contributing to a new world of expression.
He established the “high comedy” genre to cultured audiences that relied more on intellectual wit rather than slapstick or physical comedy and farce.
His Euphuistic prose style brought new sophistication, charm and subtlety to dramatic dialogue, enriching the overall dramatic expression during the Elizabethan era.

George Peele

George Peele was a dramatist who, compared to Lyly and Greene, held a lower position. His notable plays were The Arraignment of Paris, The Famous Chronicle of King Edward the First, The Battle of Alcazar, The Old Wives’ Tale, and The Love of King David and Fair Bethsabe.

Like his contemporaries, Peele used history, mythology, and legends as source material. He was not an original innovator in dramatic techniques. His play structures were weak, and he didn’t stand out in plot creation, character portrayal, or versification. However, Peele’s competence in drama shouldn’t be completely disregarded. He had versatility in themes, refined treatment, avoidance of crude humor, captivating imagery, and skillful language. These qualities earned him a respectable place among Elizabethan playwrights, though he can be seen as a contributor rather than a leader in the field.

Robert Greene

Robert Greene was a more successful playwright than Lyly In the Elizabethan era. His well-known plays include The Comical History of Alphonsus, King of Aragon, A Looking Glass for London and England (written with Thomas Lodge), Orlando Furioso, The Scottish History of James the Fourth, and Friar Bacon and Friar Bongay. He is also attributed as the author of George a Green or The Pinner of Wakefield.

Greene took subjects from English history, medieval legends, and foreign tales. Unlike John Lyly who focused on language and rhetoric, Greene had great skill in crafting dramatic characters and situations. Greene’s mastery in drawing characters and crafting dramatic situations surpasses Lyly’s work. Even Shakespeare showed influence from Greene, just as from Lyly.

His plays were meant for the stage and mass appeal, much like the works of Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe, and Shakespeare.

Greene made several key contributions to Elizabethan drama.

First, he effectively used romantic settings, which Shakespeare later employed.

Second, he created vibrant, intellectual female characters. He is among the first to portray intellectually vibrant women, a theme that Shakespeare later brilliantly elaborated on with characters like Rosalind, Celia, Viola, Beatrice, and Portia.

Third, Greene’s comedies also pioneered what is now known as the romantic comedy genre, prefiguring Shakespeare’s famous works like “As You Like It” and “Twelfth Night.”

Fourth, Greene mixed verse and humorous prose in his comedies, advancing on Lyly’s sole use of prose.

Lastly, Greene’s plays resonate with a strong national spirit, showcasing his attachment to English traditions, traits, and scenes—an affinity he shares with his great successor, Shakespeare.

Thomas Lodge

Thomas Lodge is known primarily for his romances, not his plays. Only two of Lodge’s plays survive – The Wounds of Civil War and A Looking Glass for London and England, the latter believed to be a collaboration with Greene. Neither of Lodge’s plays demonstrate strong dramatic skill or made major innovations to English drama.

Thomas Nashe

Similarly, Thomas Nashe also has very limited achievements as a dramatist. He likely contributed to Christopher Marlowe’s Dido, Queen of Carthage and the lost play called The Isle of Dogs. His one known play Summer’s Last Will and Testament is an allegorical satire about the seasons which provides a clear sense of his dramatic skills.

In short, while Peele, Lodge, and Nashe contributed to Elizabethan theater, they did not make major advancements to the era’s drama. In contrast, Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe stand out as the most prominent dramatists preceding Shakespeare. They wrote popular tragedies that paved the way for Shakespeare’s works to surpass them in fame and genius.

Thomas Kyd is known for writing the revenge tragedy The Spanish Tragedy, which followed the model of Senecan tragedies from ancient Rome. Kyd’s play popularized the revenge theme and sensational dramatic elements like blood, ghosts, and intense emotions that influenced later Elizabethan dramas including Shakespeare’s.

Kyd’s play might be considered the first example of a romantic tragedy, a style later perfected by Shakespeare. He created a new type of tragic hero through the character of Hieronimo, influencing Shakespeare’s tragic heroes like Hamlet.

Kyd’s contribution to English drama is vital. Kyd pioneered the “revenge tragedy” genre that was further developed by Shakespeare. He was the first to focus on dramatic movement’s impact on character development, using intrigue, violence, cunning, and horror to evoke suspense and emotions.

His use of blank verse matched the themes of blood and revenge, while supernatural elements like ghosts added to the eerie atmosphere. Kyd’s influence on later Elizabethan playwrights, including Shakespeare, was significant, as seen in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” being inspired by Kyd’s “The Spanish Tragedy.”

Christopher Marlowe

Christopher Marlowe was a talented playwright and a University scholar with a short but brilliant career. Christopher Marlowe, a distinct dramatist, left a remarkable mark among pre-Shakespeareans.

Despite his short life, Marlowe’s dramatic achievements were impressive. His plays, Tamburlaine, Doctor Faustus, The Jew of Malta, and Edward II showcased history, romance, and magic. Marlowe excelled in combining drama and poetry, skillfully portraying tragic characters’ inner conflicts with passionate and touching poetry. He transformed blank verse, making it musical and dignified, suiting the intensity of his tragedies centered on passion.

Marlowe’s characters were powerful tragic figures, grappling with inner conflict. He advanced the romantic tragedy genre through his focus on human emotion and poetry.

Marlowe and Kyd, along with the University Wits, laid the foundation for English drama’s development and advanced English drama up to Shakespeare’s era.

I'm a PhD research scholar & MPhil degree holder from DU, Assam and also a budding blogger. I have cracked CBSE NET (July 2018), NE-SLET (July 2018), and UGC-NTA-NET (June 2019).

It’s very easy format Thank you sir

Keep explaining like this thank you sir

Thank you, Ekta, for the feedback! 😊😊😊 I’ll keep explaining things in this way.

Thanku sir for helping can you provide some notes of Elizabethan poetry

Please check the post👉👉👉 https://literaryyog.com/elizabethan-poetry/

29 Introducing University Wits

Dr. Gargi Talapatra

1.1 INTRODUCTION:

The first theatres in England were private – at the court, in the universities, in the Inns of Court and in the mansion of the noblemen. “We find them, writes F. S. Boas, “as early as in the reign of Henry VII, attaching permanent companies of actors in their households. Thus a professional class of performers was gradually developed. In the earlier years of Elizabeth the principal companies belonged to Lord Leicester, Warwick, Clinton, and Charles Howard. Warwick’s men were later succeeded by Lord Hudson’s, Clinton’s by those of the Earl of Essex, and Lord Charles Howard’s by those of the Lord Derby. In addition to these men-actors, there were troupes of boy-performers, composed of the choirs of the Chapel Royal and St. Paul’s, or of the scholars of Westminster and Merchant Taylors’. When not playing at court or at the houses of their patrons, these companies, as a rule, made use of inn yards, such as ‘The Bell’ in Gracechurch Street, ‘The Bull’, mentioned by Gosson, in Bishopgate, and ‘The Bell Savage’ on Ludgate Hill. Leicester’s influence with the Queen enabled him in 1574 to procure for his ‘servants’ a royal patent empowering them to perform within the city of London, and throughout the realm of England, provided that their plays were licensed by the Master of the Revels. But the company was to meet with strenuous opposition to the exercise of these privileges. The Corporation of London was the determined enemy of the stage, on the double ground of the immorality of so many of the performances, and of the peril of contagion in time of plague. Accordingly, in the year 1576, it issued an order no theatrical performances should be given in public within the city bounds. This order led to a prolonged contest between the Corporation and the Privy Council, which had a highly important result. The players, relying on the favour of the Court, yet not daring openly to defy the authority of the Mayor, established themselves in permanent buildings just beyond the boundaries of the city. Here they were outside the jurisdiction of the Corporation, and yet close enough to the town to permit of both the public and the Court gallants being present at their performances. In this way regular theatres sprang into existence, and took the place of the inns and the temporary erections which had hitherto sufficed for dramatic shows: the stage passed from nomadic to the settled condition.” [ Shakspere and His Predecessors ]

1.2. DISCUSSION

A band of young men from the universities who are called ‘University Wits’ – Peele, Greene, Kyd, Marlowe, Nash and a few lesser known men in England set the pattern for such plays and paved the way for great Shakespeare to unleash his creative genius. The term “University Wits” was not used in their lifetime, but was coined by George Saintsbury, a 19th-century journalist and author. Saintsbury argues that the “rising sap” of dramatic creativity in the 1580s showed itself in two separate “branches of the national tree”:

In the first place, we have the group of university wits, the strenuous if not always wise band of professed men of letters, at the head of whom are Lyly, Marlowe, Greene, Peele, Lodge, Nash, and probably (for his connection with the universities is not certainly known) Kyd. In the second, we have the irregular band of outsiders, players and others, who felt themselves forced into literary and principally dramatic composition, who boast Shakespeare as their chief, and who can claim as seconds to him not merely the imperfect talents of Chettle, Munday, and others whom we may mention in this chapter, but many of the perfected ornaments of a later time.

Saintsbury argues that the Wits drew on the ploddingly academic verse-drama of Thomas Sackville, and the crude but lively popular entertainments of “miscellaneous farce-and-interlude-writers”, to create the first truly powerful dramas in English. The University Wits, “with Marlowe at their head, made the blank verse line for dramatic purposes, dismissed, cultivated as they were, the cultivation of classical models, and gave English tragedy its Magna Charta of freedom and submission to the restrictions of actual life only”. However, they failed “to achieve perfect life-likeness”. It was left to “the actor-playwrights who, rising from very humble beginnings, but possessing in their fellow Shakespeare a champion unparalleled in ancient and modern times, borrowed the improvements of the university wits, added their own stage knowledge, and with Shakespeare’s aid achieved the master drama of the world.”

Edward Albert in his History of English Literature (1979) argues that the plays of the University Wits had several features in common :

There was a fondness for heroic themes, such as the lives of great figures like Mohammed and Tamburlaine.
Heroic themes needed heroic treatment: great fullness and variety; splendid descriptions, long swelling speeches, the handling of violent incidents and emotions. These qualities, excellent when held in restraint, only too often led to loudness and disorder.
The style was also ‘heroic’. The chief aim was to achieve strong and sounding lines, magnificent epithets, and powerful declamation. This again led to abuse and to mere bombast, mouthing, and in the worst cases to nonsense. In the best examples, such as in Marlowe, the result is quite impressive. In this connexion it is to be noted that the best medium for such expression was blank verse, which was sufficiently elastic to bear the strong pressure of these expansive methods.
The themes were usually tragic in nature, for the dramatists were as a rule too much in earnest to give heed to what was considered to be the lower species of comedy. The general lack of real humour in the early drama is one of its most prominent features. Humour, when it is brought in at all, is coarse and immature. Almost the only representative of the writers of real comedies is Lyly.

G. K. Hunter argues that the new “Humanistic education” of the age allowed them to create a “complex commercial drama, drawing on the nationalisation of religious sentiment” in such a way that it spoke to an audience “caught in the contradictions and liberations history had imposed.”

While Marlowe is the most famous dramatist among them, Robert Greene and Thomas Nash were better known for their controversial, risqué and argumentative pamphlets, creating an early form of journalism. Greene has been called the “first notorious professional writer”.

In the English drama of this period, the native and the foreign elements mingle so finely that it is very difficult to separate them. The audience did not care to distinguish between the two strains of influences and accepted materials and fashions of folk traditions as well as new themes inspired by the classics. In many plays we find allegorical characters and situations side by side with spectacular violence, a mixture of comedy and tragedy forbidden by classical rules, rhetoric and bombast with simplicity and foolery. This drama was called ‘romantic’ for it was something new in Europe and adhered to no rules. John Lyly, one of Shakespeare’s predecessors in comedy, wrote drama in prose but dramatists found out plays in blank verse paid better dividends and so did not use prose until Ben Jonson wrote his realistic comedies.

2.1 INDIVIDUAL PLAYWRIGHTS

A. John Lyly (1554-1660) was a school teacher who taught Latin and wrote plays for private teachers and aristocratic audience. He turned to drama after his success with Euphues , following his courtly artificial prose to the stage to bring into being a new kind of court comedy. He was the author of at least eight comedies – all, except The Woman in the Moon , in a modified form of his euphuistic style. In them he gave the first skilful dramatic dialogue of the age. His delicately balanced and stylized prose was an up gradation over the doggerel “fourteeners” of his predecessors. Though he turned to Greek legends for the plots of his plays, he cast them in a completely original way where he blends mythology and human sentiment. His subjects are allegorical but through them he treated topical issues. In A most excellent Comedy of Alexander and Campaspe , and Diogenes (1581) he introduces the theme of rivalry between Alexander the Great and the painter Apelles for the Theban captive Campaspe besides holding up to his queen the ideal of Alexander who sacrificed love to kingly duty. In Saphao and Phao (1584), mythology is more pronounced: Saphao the chaste princess has the better of Venus. Cynthia of Endymion (1586) receives love but never returns it just like Elizabeth. Midas (1592) is a satire on greed as typified in Philip II of Spain. Gallathea (1587), Loves’s Metamorphoses , and The Woman in the Moon are pastoral plays. The first is laid in Lincolnshire, the second in Arcadia, and the third in Utopia, but in fact the scene is the same in all three – a pastoral dreamland against which allegorical and mythological action concerning nymphs, swains, soldiers, monsters, goddesses, and a variety of human lovers and supernatural characters is played out. Gallathea shows two girls disguised as boys falling in love with each other. In Lyly the broad farce and horse-play has no place, his humour and wit are refined. He was also the first dramatist to introduce fairies to the English stage. Lyly’s plays are full of lovely songs and though they were not popular they exerted a considerable influence on later dramatists. The phrase that comes to mind with reference to Lyly’s plays is “faded charm.” They are unparallel; the subplots are not always effectively knitted up with the main story; but there exists a delicate imagination, a sense of form and wholeness, and a new idea of comedy, all of which held flourishing promise for later Elizabethan drama.

B. George Peele (c.1558-1597):

Born in the gutters of London Peele was educated at London and led a Bohemian life. He narrowly escaped imprisonment for swindles. A better poet than dramatist he chastened the blank verse and created a genre in each of his five plays that have survived. The Arraignment of Paris (1581) is a pastoral comedy relating the story of the golden apple. Here Peele takes the familiar story of the judgement of Paris, treating the love of Paris and Oenone and Paris’s consequent inconstancy with a smooth lyrical grace. The love of Colin for his hardhearted Thestylis comprises a subplot, with rustic characters (whose names are derived from Spenser’s Shepherds’s Calendar ) introduced to endow with a more realistic level of action. Paris is summoned before the Council of the Gods, at the instance of Pallas and Juno, to be accused partiality in his judgement. He defends himself in vigorous blank verse and, finally Diana awards the disputed golden apple to a gracious nymph

That honours Dian for her chastity

And likes the labours well of Phoebe’s groves;

The place Elizium hight, and of the place

Her name that governs there Eliza is.

And Peele awards the fruit to the nymph Zabeta (Queen Elizabeth). It is written in a variety of verse forms, including “fourteeners” and includes some fine singing lyrics, notably the duet sung by Paris and Oenone, “Fair and fair, and twice so fair,” which is sadly echoed later in Oenone’s lament for her desertion of Paris. As the play is essentially a masque, there is little dramatic movement in it. Edward I (1591) is a crude chronicle play. Part of its materials was supplied by Holinshed but the main story is based on a popular ballad. The Battle of Alcazar is too loosely connected to produce a satisfactory drama. The blank verse in David and Bethsabe excels in sweetness and flexibility everything written before. It dramatizes the biblical story of David’s love for Bathsheba and Absalom’s mutiny in elaborately rhetorical and slow-pacing blank-verse. Charming song integrated with the action makes Peele’s The Old Wives Tale (1590) the liveliest of his plays. It is a play of wicked enchantment and real love which begins as a narrative recounted by Magde, wife of Clunch the blacksmith, to three gay fellows who have lost their way in the wood and whom she is entertaining at her chalet; but soon after she initiates the story the characters emerge to act it out, so that the oral narration becomes the play itself. The introductory scene is in forceful colloquial prose; the main part of the play is partly in a more mannered prose and partly in blank verse. Though the whole possesses a quaint charm, the several ingredients of which it is made up are not well-connected to produce the impression of a finished product. However, it made romantic comedy immediately popular. As said earlier, Peele was a skilled poet, who experimented with drama and tried bring appealing charm in this genre. In spite of having a little theatrical sagacity or gift for dramatic construction, he was talented and prolific enough and his dynamic lyricism instilled novelty into Elizabethan dramaturgy.

C. Robert Greene (c.1560-1592) , a prolific and a bohemian genius, and better recognized for his graphic autobiographical narrative than for his plays, turned to the drama to eek out his livelihood. Greene himself informs in A Groatsworth of Wit how he came to compose for the stage. “Once, sitting by a hedge lamenting his misfortune and poor prospects, he was overheard by a player who told him he required the services of a scholar to write plays: ‘for which you will be well paid if you take the pains.’ To which proposal he agreed, thinking it best ‘in respect of his present necessity to try his wit.’ The result was a group of plays characterized by a crafts was a group of plays characterized by a craftsman-like plotting, a skilful mixture of realistic native background and an atmosphere of romance, and an ability to portray a heroine who is both charming as a personality, attractive as a woman, and convincing as a human being.” So long women played but a minor part in dramatic plots. Greene made them as important as men in his plays. Moreover, he placed the comic and the tragic side by side. The best of his plays, The Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (1589) is partly in prose. It has two parallel plots blend together. The main plot resembles that of Faustus but Roger Bacon saves his soul wooing and winning Margaret, a country girl. The story revolves around Bacon’s evidence of his magical ability (which he ultimately renounces) before King Henry III and the Emperor of Germany and merges with this not only some colloquial humour but also an amatory idyll between Margaret, the fair maid of Fressingfield, and Lacy, Earl of Lincoln. The two plots are orderly built-in to produce an atmosphere of wholeness. The action shifts between Margaret’s Suffolk, Friar Bacon’s cell in Oxford, and the court, and, despite the lack of scenery-arrangements there exists a limpid motion of progress; the dialogue, mostly workmanlike blank verse but sporadically in lively prose, carries the story along enthusiastically, in spite of some flashes of superfluous classical embellishment in the love speeches. The Scottish History of James the Fourth is not at all a history/chronicle play although the title might induce to think so. It is a serious comedy derived from a story by the Italian Giraldi Cinthio. The play begins with a slightly atypical piece of machinery: it is performed before Oberon, King of Fairies, by Bohan, a Scot, to prove his sceptical attitude that the world is not a suitable place for a wise man to live in. The main plot is concerned with King James’s love for Ida, daughter of the Countess of Arran, and the evil (including countenancing an attempt of the life of his queen) into which this guides him. But Ida’s firm rejection of her regal suitor and Queen Dorothea’s loyalty to her erring husband (she is driven from court disguised as a page and wounded by a hired assassin) bring the story finally to a happy ending. Dorothea combines the fortitude of Griselda with something of the self-reliance as well as the steadiness of Shakespeare’s Viola and Imogen, and the play, though slow-stirring, has some fascinating and some tenderly poignant moments. Greene’s other plays are of less-interest (though George a Green or the Pinner of Wakefield , which may well be his but cannot be definitely credited to him, exhibits lots of his best merits), Orlando Furioso (1588, based on Ariosto) and Alphouses, King of Arragon (1587), demonstrate the influence not very happily of Marlowe’s Tamburlaine . Like Kyd and Marlowe, Genre wrote for the public stage and looked for and popular success “romantic comedy” – a genre of which Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and As You Like It represent the highest development.

D. Thomas Lodge (c. 1557-1625) is much less significant as a contributor to the development of English drama. His most outstanding work is his euphuistic prose romance, Rosalynde , the chief source of Shakespeare’s As You Like It . He wrote a sizeable amount of diverse prose and some accomplished sonnets, and collaborated with Greene in A Looking Glass for London and England , a moral play concerning a vicious despot called to repentance. His one certainly identified entirely original play is The Wounds of Civil War , “lively set forth in true tragedy of Marius and Scilla.” This dealing of the civil war between Marius and Sulla is interesting as an early dramatic treatment of Roman history, but on the whole it is a confused presentation, despite some Marlovian touches.

E. Thomas Nashe (1567-1601) had a share in some plays by more than one author (collaboration being a not unusual exercise at this time), but the only complete existing play of his is Summer’s Last Will and Testament , an symbolic play about the seasons which unites satire with courtly compliment; it has accompanying songs and some sparkling moments, in spite of a general limitation in both plot and character description. His most remarkable work is a picaresque tale called The Unfortunate Traveller .

F. If Greene brought into being what has been called “romantic comedy,” Thomas Kyd (1558-94) was an even greater popular success as the founder of what might be called “romantic tragedy.” Combining the elements of love, conspiracy, murder, and revenge, Kyd developed a way of adapting some of the appealing features of Senecan tragedy to roaring melodrama. The Spanish Tragedie (1584) is the first, and in its melodramatic way the most powerful, of the series of revenge plays that captured the Elizabethan and Jacobean imagination. The story is full of horror; it has murder, suicide, madness, intrigue, villains, the avenging ghost and blood-freezing climaxes. The plot of the Spanish Tragedie is intricate and bears resemblances to Shakespeare’s Hamlet . Horatio is the son of Hieronimo, the Marshal of Spain. He and Lorenzo capture in battle Balthazar, the son of the Viceroy of Portugal. Balthazar makes love to Belimperia, Lorenzo’s sister and is encouraged by Lorenzo. They discover that Belimperia loves Horatio and kills him. Hieronimo discovers the murderers of his son and is mad for revenge. He arranges a performance with himself, Belimperia, Lorenzo and Balthazar in the cast. In course of this play within the play Lorenzo and Balthazar are killed, while Hieronimo and Belimperia take their own life. A sketchy summary of the plot, of course, can impart a little idea of the power of the play. Violence is all-pervasive; passion and intrigue worked themselves out in every variety of horror and malicious scheming. The blank verse fuses exclamatory rhetoric with morbid sententiousness. After the witty love play in the dialogue between Bell-imperia and Horatio in the arbor:

Bel. If I be Venus, thou must needs be Mars;

And where Mars reigneth there must needs be wars.

Hor. Then thus begin our wars: put forth thy hand,

That it may combat with my ruder hand,

Bel. Set forth thy foot to try the push of mine.

Hor. But first my looks shall combat against thine.

Bel. Then guard thyself: I dart this kiss at thee…..

we get the sudden intrusion of the assassins, the dispatching of Horatio, Belimperia’s uproar, Lorenzo’s callous, “Come, stop her mouth; away with her,” and then the sudden entrance of the excited Hieronimo:

What outcries pluck me from my naked bed,

And chill my throbbing heart with trembling fear,

Which never danger yet could daunt before?

Who calls Hieronimo? Speak, here I am.

I did not slumber; therefore ’twas no dream,

And here within this garden did she cry,

And in this garden must I rescue her.-

But stay, what murd’rous spectacle is this?

A man hang’d up and all the murderers gone!

And in my bower, to lay the guilt on me!

This place was for pleasure, not for death.

(He cuts him down.)

In spite of the long rhetorical eruptions, the speed of the action is terrific, event following on event with the grimmest kind of irony. The characterization in the play is unsophisticated to the point of non-existence; only passions carry them forward making them dissemble and hate and go and frantic as well as love and murder. The Spanish Tragedy was really “good theatre”; it was one of the great successes of the Elizabethan stage. It is believed that Kyd composed a Hamlet (which has not survived), on which Shakespeare based his Hamlet ; but even without this supposed lost play of Kyd’s we can discern his manner of sensational melodrama lies behind the boundlessly subtler and profounder Shakespearean tragedy.

G. Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593): One of the most dashing personalities of his age, Marlowe revolutionised play-writing within the short span of five years. Kyd had improved the technique of English drama but Marlowe was its creative force. The pattern of the romantic tragedy he wrote was followed by his contemporaries including Shakespeare. As a playwright he had serious limitations, though it is feasible to map out a growing sense of the theatre through his plays. Only in Edward II does he show any sense of plot structure, while his characterization is of the simplest, and lacks the warm humanity of Shakespeare’s. His dramas except Edward II depict the rise and fall of one character who dominates the action. They exhibit no intricacy or subtleness of development and are the quintessence of a single idea; they achieve success regardless of cost and go down fighting. Like their creator, they defy both man and God in this life and are madly after power. Really, to realize Marlovian characters, we must put aside traditional ideas of the dramatist personae and view them as the representation of a poetic vision, the typically Renaissance quest power – l’amour de l’impossible – combined with the quest for beauty. Tamburlaine, the hero of Tamburlaine the Great I and II (1588), seeks it in ruthless conquests: “sweet fruition of an earthly crown”; Barabas of The Jew of Malta (1591), in wealth: “infinite riches in little room”, Faustus of Doctor Faustus (1592) in super-human knowledge. In Edward II Marlowe attempted a chronicle play and enhanced its dignity by bringing out the sublimity of human suffering. It is the best of the plays from the stand-point of plot construction and is a tragedy of situation while the others are tragedies of character. Each play is propelled by a vision which gives it the artistic and poetic unity. It is as a poet Marlowe excels; his greatest contribution to the English drama is his blank verse thundering or vibrating in the jeers of the Scythian king at his captive princes, in Barabas’s out-pouring of scorn and hate, in Faustus’s impassioned apostrophe to Helen, in Edward II’s abdicating speech. He was the first to show how sonorous the medium could be made. But his verse is not suited to dialogue for it is too high sounding for the exchange of intimate emotions. As Marlowe was deficient in humour his comic scenes are of an inferior kind. One of the two other plays believed to be Marlowe’s The Tragedy of Dido , Queen of Carthage (1593) is unworthy of his genius. Parts of this play were written by Thomas Nashe. The Massacre at Paris is a piece that Marlowe could not complete for he was killed in a drunken brawl at a tavern at the age of twenty-eight.

George Saintsbury, History of Elizabethan Literature , MacMillan, London, 1887, pp.60-64
Edward Albert, History of English Literature , Oxford University Press, 1979, p.89.
G. K. Hunter, English Drama 1586–1642: The Age of Shakespeare , Clarendon, 1997, p.24.

Who are University Wits? Evaluate their contribution to Elizabethan drama.

Contribution of University Wits to the Elizabethan Drama

After the establishment of The Theatre in 1576 there came a huge competition in the production of drama. Novelty in drama is always needed for success. The managers were finding such men who could patch up old plays with new matters. A bunch of bohemian writers associated with either Oxford or Cambridge University came forward in the literary canvas with their handful of contribution in the field of drama. They are called “University Wits” . They absorbed the new renaissance spirit and synthesizing the vigour of the native tradition with more refined classicism. The group consisted of seven- John Lyly, Thomas Kyd, Thomas Nash, Thomas Lodge, George Peele, Robert Greene and Christopher Marlowe . So they are known as “The seven Stars of the Cosmos.”

Lyly’s plays contain attractive lyrics. He was the first dramatist to write essentially high comedy . His best plays are: Alexander , Sapho and Phao , Endimion , Midas , Love’s Metamorphosis , The Wife in the Moon etc.

Peele is noted for his poetic Style and decorative phrases. His contributions are flowery. He wrote The Arraignment of Paris , The Chronicle of Edward I , The Old Wives’ Tale etc.

Greene was a poet, pamphleteer, proto-novelist and playwright. He is Powerful for his Romantic setting. His plays include Alphonsus, King of Aragon , Orlando Furioso , Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay etc.

Kyd brought the Senecan taste of horror ghost, hanging, stabbing, madness , pistolling and suicide. He influenced Shakespeare also. His notable contribution is Spanish Tragedy which follows the line of Elizabethan Revenge tragedy .

Marlowe typifies the Renaissance spirit more completely than any other University Wits. He made heroic theme popular. Marlowe’s used of blank verse as an effective and pliant medium of tragic utterance. All his plays are tragedies- Tamburlaine , The Jew of Malta , Edward II , Doctor Faustus etc.

Lodge was popular for his romance, Rosalynde . His only original play is The Woundes of Civile War .

Nash made tremendous contribution to comedy. His comedies attack so many current abuses in the state. His most popular play is Summer’s Last Will and Testament.

Journey of Indian English Drama

The constellation of University wits made the Elizabethan drama more popular with Renaissance humanism and pride of patriotism. English drama for the first time in their hands recognized its potentialities and exuberance. They wrote classical plays, courtly comedies, farces, chronicle plays, melodramas etc. They gave thrill, action, sensation, hum our and music. Undeniably the University Wits paved the way for Shakespeare and other playwrights of the coming of ages.

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The University Wits

The University Wits come under the first dramatic period of the Elizabethan period. The term was first used by George Saintsbury in his book A History of the Elizabethan Literature . The University Wits are the generation educated at the Oxford and Cambridge Universities who used their poetry to make theatre, breathed new life into classical models and brought a new audience to the issues and conflicts which the stage could dramatise. They gave English tragedy its Magna Charta of freedom and submission to the restrictions of the actual life. The heads of the University wits are: Christopher Marlowe, Robert Greene , George Peele , Thomas Nashe , Thomas Lodge , John Lyly and probably Thomas Kyd .

Among these seven, Lyle stands a good deal apart from personally, despite his close literary connection. There is no evidence that he has acquainted with any one of the other University Wits. Thomas Kyd , the author of The Spanish Tragedy also has no record for his connection with the Universities. But the other five were closely connected in life, and in their deaths they were hardly divided.

Thomas Lodge , only of the five seems to have freed himself, partly in virtue of a regular profession, and partly in consequence of his adherence to the Roman faith and from the Bohemianism. The atheism of Marlowe rests on no proof, though it has got him friends in his later time. The majority of the too celebrated “jests” attributed to George Peele is directly traceable to Villon’s Repues Franches and similar compilation, and have a suspiciously mythical and traditional air to the student of literary history. The figure of Thomas Nashe is of major importance in the history of narrative. He is credited by some as having ‘invented’ modern narrative, particularly with The Unfortunate Traveller (1594), which he himself described as ‘being a clean different vein from other my former courses of writing’. Greene’s prose pieces and his occasional poems are, no doubt, better than his drama, but the latter is considerable, and was probably his earliest works.

For detailed information on each of the seven University Wits read the Upcoming posts.

A History of the Elizabethan Literature- George Saintsbury

The Routledge History of Literature in English

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Contribution of university wits in english literature

Fundamental concepts of classical Drama

Dramatic medium

Art of characterization, art of plot creation.

Christopher Marlowe

Critical note

The pre-Shakespearean dramatists John Lyly, Robert Greene, George Peele, Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe are collectively referred to as the ‘University Wits’ since they were all university-educated individuals. Their professions bear an uncanny resemblance. They were all performers and playwrights. They were intimately familiar with both the stage and the audience, and their sole objective was to satisfy the crowd and give them what they desired.

They began as actors, altered existing plays, and eventually established themselves as independent writers. This way, they gained a full understanding of their trade. They shared a common source of material—mythology, legend, and history—which explains their startling similarities in themes and personalities. They rarely invested in plots of their own. However, each of them contributed significantly to the development of English Drama in one way or the other, Shakespeare is indebted to each of them.

Before the University Wits began writing, two dramatic traditions were vying for mastery of the English Drama: the classic tradition and the popular theatre tradition. For select intellectual audiences, the scholars or humanists composed scholarly plays in the classical tradition.

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The three fundamental concepts of classical Drama are as follows:

(a) The preservation of tone and action unity, i.e., retaining a portion of the tragic and funny. The action must be totally tragic or entirely comedic; there must be no blending of the two, as the tragedy was supposed to lose its potency due to the comic’s incursion. This way, all amusement was omitted from tragedy.

(b) Adherence to the three fundamental unities of time, location, and action. The setting must remain consistent, and the tale must not exceed a few hours, preferably the time required for the play’s staging. It must, in any event, not exceed twenty-four hours. This also meant that the dramatic personages’ personalities remained consistent throughout, as character changes are not conceivable within a few hours.

(c) Due to the indoor setting of the plays, forceful or aggressive action was deemed inappropriate. Combat, bloodshed, and other terrible events occurred offstage; they were recounted by the messenger. The classical Drama was devoid of action.

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The English Drama of popular tradition disregarded these classical rules of dramatic composition:

(a) Temporal and spatial unities were abandoned. Scenes were regularly modified, and a toddler in one scene was transformed into a man in the next. The spectators’ imaginations were required to transcend the time and space divider.

(b) The dramatists allowed their imaginations to run wild and presented their entire lives in one location and one hour. Probability was ignored entirely.

(c) The stage was packed with ferocious, violent movements. On stage, fighting, bloodshed, scenes of violence, and even murder were brazenly displayed.

(d) Tragic and funny elements coexisted freely, as they do in life. Clowning and tomfoolery were integral aspects of popular culture.

(e) There was plenty of coarseness, crudity, and obscenity to appeal to the audience’s lower segments.

The national English Drama evolved from the synthesis of classical, courtly, and popular traditions, and the University Wits pioneered this combination. Each of them was a humanist, a man of new learning. They were so conversant with classical theatrical composition rules as well as the beauty and delicacy of courtly play. However, being performers, they were familiar with popular tastes. They devoted their abilities to the public stage, and as a result, their creativity was heavily impacted by audience tastes. They ignored the unities, embraced the universal need for action, and attempted to show life as it is. They provided the populace with the stage spectacles and magnificent performances they desired.

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However, they contributed to the dramatic beauty of form and the clarity of structure. They omitted much of the crudeness and absurd extravagance associated with popular Drama. Thus, they assured “the dominance of that open and flexible type of play,” as Hudson puts it, which Shakespeare would later adopt.

The University Wits deserves credit for developing an appropriate dramatic medium. John Lyly was the first significant dramatist to write entirely in prose. He honed the comedic language and excelled at puns, conceits, funny banter, and all kind of wordplay.

Shakespeare’s early comedies, such as Love’s Labour’s Lost and A Midsummer Night’s Dream was written in his vernacular. Shakespeare owes the most outstanding debt to Marlowe, who polished blank verse and transformed it into an acceptable medium for dramatic expression. He infused flexibility into the text, ensuring that the sense does not end with each line but continues from one to the next. It is resonant and forceful and well merits the accolade “Marlowe’s great line.” However, it occasionally descends into vacuous bombast and declamation, flaws that only Shakespeare could cure. Shakespeare obtained the blank verse ready-made for his purpose, but he further improved and perfected it.

See also Doctor Faustus as a man of Renaissance

The University Wits also made a significant contribution to the art of characterization. Margaret (in Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay), Robert Greene’s novel about a pure English country girl, is unique in English literary history. She is Shakespeare’s earliest drawing of a heroine. For the first time, a pure-hearted woman is depicted with love and grace. In Kyde, we get our first glimpse of Hamlet’s hesitant hero. As with Shakespeare’s tragic figures, Marlowe’s tragic figures are alive and authentic; they are not puppets but individuals who live their own lives and capture the imagination by the intensity of their feelings.

Additionally, the University Wits achieved significant advancements in the art of plot creation. “From Lyly, Shakespeare learned how to interweave a central courtly storyline with scenes of rustic folly and clownish deception,” Hudson explains. Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay by Robert Greene have various characteristics, including courtly, rural, magical, romantic, and idyllic, all of which have been expertly woven together. The play foreshadows Shakespeare’s ability to develop plots in early comedies such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Without a doubt, the majority of Marlowe’s plots are loose and formless, yet in Edward II, he succeeds in crafting a story that is almost Shakespearean in its brevity.

Related Development of satire during the Elizabethan age

Christopher Marlowe (1564-93)

The University Wits, particularly Marlowe, influenced the medieval understanding of tragedy. The medieval concept of tragedy referred to the demise of a great man—a king or a prince—as a result of Fate’s intervention. However, Marlowe believes that tragedy is not limited to kings and princes; it “is a matter of particular heroes.” Not all of Marlowe’s tragic heroes are born great; they rise to greatness through their own ability for heroic action. They possess the near-superhuman drive and the capability for heroic action, which propels them to greatness.

Fate eventually vanquishes them, but they stay unconquered until the very end. His heroes die valiantly; they resist valiantly and succumb only because the odds are stacked against them. Thus, Marlowe infused English tragedy with aspects of strife and strife. He, like the majority of medieval dramatists, had no moral agenda. Marlowe, like Shakespeare, succeeds in eliciting our sympathy for his heroes who become villains. Edward II, a study in human frailty, allows us a glimpse inside the abdicating king’s soul, torn by immense pain. Marlowe’s tragic notion is extremely similar to Shakespeare’s.

The University Wits infused the English Drama with literary elegance and polish. Peele and Lyly lavished it with poetic imagery. Their plays include a good deal of the sweetness found in Shakespeare’s plays. On the other hand, Marlowe imbued the English Drama with fire, intensity, lyrical eloquence, poetic grandeur, and emotion. His grandiose heroic presentation is entirely appropriate for his heroic subjects.

Thus, each of the University Wits advanced the English Drama in his unique style. Without the University Wits’ efforts, the tremendous Shakespearean Drama would not have been conceivable. However, their disparate abilities were yet to be unified into one man and one work. Shakespeare’s task was to unite them, to fuse them, and also to enhance them. Thus, Shakespeare produced England’s full-blooded national Drama, the Romantic Drama, which appealed to all tastes and segments of society. And he infused it with his distinct, powerful comedy, which had been conspicuously absent from even Marlowe’s tragedies. Shakespeare’s uniqueness and magnificence are embodied in this synthesis.

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The University Wits BA English Honours Notes BBMKU & VBU Semester II

The University Wits: In this article, we made some points to understand the literary group of the University Wits who founded the Elizabethan school of Drama. These notes help you solve the questions of the second-semester BA English Students of BBMKU and VBU universities.

The University Wits

These young men, nearly all associated with Oxford and Cambridge, did much to find the Elizabethan school of drama. Their plays had several features in common. They were all more or less acquainted with each other, and most led irregular and stormy lives.

(a) There was a fondness for heroic themes, such as the lives of significant figures like Mohammed and Tamburlaine.
(b) Heroic themes needed heroic treatment: great fullness and variety, splendid descriptions, long swelling speeches, and the handling of violent incidents and emotions. These qualities, excellent when held in restraint, only too often led to loudness and disorder.
(c) The style also was ‘heroic’. The chief aim was to achieve strong and sounding lines, magnificent epithets, and powerful declamation. The result is impressive in the best examples, such as in Marlowe. In this connection, it is to be noted that the best medium for such expression was blank verse, which was sufficiently elastic to bear the intense pressure of these expansive methods.
(d) The themes were usually tragic, for the dramatists were, as a rule, too much in earnest to give heed to that considered to be the lower species of comedy. The general lack of real humour in the early drama is one of its most prominent features. Humour, when it is brought in at all, is coarse and immature. Almost the only representative of the writers of real comedies is Lyly, who, in such plays as Campaspe (1584), Endymion (1592), and The Woman in the Moone, gives us the first examples of romantic comedy.

George Peele (1558-98)

George Peele was born in London, educated at Christ’s Hospital and Oxford, and became a literary hack and freelance in London. His plays include The Arraignment of Paris (1584), a kind of romantic comedy; The Famous Chronicle of King Edward the First (1593), a rambling chronicle-play; The Old Wives’ Tale (1591-94), a clever satire on the popular drama of the day; and The Love of King David and Fair Bethsabe (1599).

Robert Greene (1558-92)

Robert Greene wrote much and recklessly, but his plays are of sufficient merit to find a place in the development of the drama. He was born in Norwich, educated at Cambridge (1575) and Oxford (1588), and then took to literary life in London. If all accounts, including his own, are true, his career in London must have taken place in a sink of debauchery. He is said to have died, after an orgy in a London Ale-House, “of a surfeit of pickle herring and Rhenish wine.” Here we can only refer to his thirty-five prose tracts, probably the best of his literary work, for they reveal his intense though erratic energy, quick, malicious wit, and powerful imagination. His plays number four: Alphonsus, King of Aragon (1587), an imitation of Marlowe’s Tamburlaine; Frier Bacon and Frier Bongay (1589), easily his best, and containing some fine representations of Elizabethan life; Orlando Furioso (1591), adapted from an English translation of Ariosto; and The Scottish Historie of James the Fourth (acted in 1592), not a ‘historical’ play, but founded on an imaginary incident in the life of the King. Greene is weak in creating characters, and his style is not of outstanding merit, but his humour is somewhat genial in his plays and his methods less austere than those of the other tragedians.

Thomas Nash (1567-1601)

Thomas Nash was born at Lowestoft, educated at Cambridge, and then (1586) went to London to make his living by literature. He was a born journalist, but in those days, the only scope for his talents lay in pamphleteering. He took an active part in the political and personal questions of the day, and his truculent methods actually landed him in jail (1600). He finished Marlowe’s Dido, but his only surviving play is Summer’s Last Will and Testament (1592), a satirical masque. His The Unfortunate Traveller , or the Life of Jacke Wilton (1594), a prose tale, is important in the development of the novel.

Thomas Lodge (1558-1625)

Thomas Lodge was the son of a Lord Mayor of London, was educated in London and at Oxford, and studied law. He deserted his legal studies, took on a literary career, and is said to have been an actor at one time. His dramatic work is small in quantity. He probably collaborated with Shakespeare in Henry VI and other dramatists, including Greene. The only surviving play entirely his own is The Wounds of Civil War (1594), a kind of chronicle-play. His pamphleteering was voluminous and energetic. His prose romances constitute his greatest claim to fame. Though his prose is elaborate in the euphuistic style of Lyly, and the tales are often tedious, they contain exquisite lyrics. The most famous of his romances is Rosalynde: Euphues Golden Legacy (1590), which Shakespeare followed very closely in the plot of As You Like It.

Thomas Kyd (1558-94)

Thomas Kyd is one of the most important of the University Wits . Very little is known of his life. He was born in London, educated probably at Merchant Taylors’ School, adopted a literary career, and became secretary to a nobleman. He became acquainted with Marlowe, and that brilliant but sinister spirit enticed him into composing “lewd libels” and “blasphemies.” Marlowe’s sudden death saved him from punishment for such offences, but Kyd was imprisoned and tortured. Though he was afterwards released, Kyd soon died under the weight of “bitter times and privy broken passions.” Much of this dramatist’s work has been lost. The Spanish Tragedie (about 1585) is the most important of the surviving plays. Its horrific plot, involving murder, frenzy, and sudden death, gave the play great and lasting popularity.

There is a largeness of tragical conception about the play that resembles the work of Marlowe, and there are touches of style that dimly foreshadow the great tragical lines of Shakespeare. The only other surviving play known to be Kyd’s is Cornelia (1593), a translation from the French Senecan Garnier . Still, his hand has been sought in many plays, including Soliman and Perseda (1588), the First Part of Jeronimo (1592), an attempt to write after the success of The Spanish Tragedie, an introductory play to it, and Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus.

Christopher Marlowe (1564-93)

Christopher Marlowe was the greatest of the pre-Shakespearian dramatists. He was born at Canterbury and educated there and at Cambridge. He adopted literature as a profession and became attached to the Lord Admiral’s players. His combination of an inquiring mind and dissolute life led him to be charged with atheism and immorality. Only his sudden death in a tavern brawl enabled him to avoid arrest.

Marlowe’s plays, all tragedies, were written within five years (1587-92). He had no bent for comedy, and the comic parts found in some of his plays are always inferior and maybe by other writers. As a dramatist, Marlowe had serious limitations, though tracing a growing sense of the theatre through his plays is possible. Only in Edward II does he show any sense of plot construction, while his characterization is of the simplest and lacks the warm humanity of Shakespeare’s. All the plays, except Edward II, revolve around one figure drawn in bold outlines.

This character shows no complexity or subtlety of development and is the embodiment of a single idea. Indeed, to appreciate Marlowe properly, we must put aside Conventional ideas of the drama and view his plays as the representation of a poetic vision, the typically Renaissance quest for power- l’amour de l’impossible combined with the quest for beauty. In Tamburlaine the Great , the shepherd seeks the “sweet fruition of an earthly crown,” The Jew of Malta Barabbas seeks “infinite riches in a little room,” while the quest of Doctor Faustus is for more than human knowledge. Each play is the driving force behind this vision, giving it an artistic and poetic unity. It is, indeed, as a poet that Marlowe excels. Though not the first to use blank verse in English drama, he was the first to exploit its possibilities and make them supreme.

His verse is notable for its burning energy, splendour of diction, sensuous richness, variety of pace, and responsiveness to the demands of varying emotions. Full of bold primary colours, his poetry is crammed with imagery from the classics, astronomy, and geography, imagery barbaric in its wealth and splendour. Its resonance and power led Ben Jonson to coin the phrase “Marlowe’s mighty line,” but its might has often obscured its technical precision and admirable lucidity and finish. At times Marlowe degenerates into bombast, and there is little attempt before Edward II to suit the speech to the speaker. Still, his blank verse is unequalled by his contemporaries, except for Shakespeare.

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Who were the University Wits and what is their significance in English
Share Cite. The University Wits were a group of six writers of the late 1500s who set about to transform drama on the English stage. They were all university educated (hence the name). It has been ...
University Wits in English Literature
Introduction. University Wits is a phrase used to describe a group of late 16th-century English playwrights and pamphleteers who were educated at renowned universities Oxford and Cambridge and went on to become prominent secular writers. Their education influenced their writing and made them distinctive figures in the literary world at the time.
University wits
interlude. university wits, the notable group of pioneer English dramatists who wrote during the last 15 years of the 16th century and who transformed the native interlude and chronicle play with their plays of quality and diversity. The university wits include Christopher Marlowe, Robert Greene, and Thomas Nashe (all graduates of Cambridge ...
University Wits
The University Wits is a phrase used to name a group of late 16th-century English playwrights and pamphleteers who were educated at the universities (Oxford or Cambridge) and who became popular secular writers.Prominent members of this group were Christopher Marlowe, Robert Greene, and Thomas Nashe from Cambridge, and John Lyly, Thomas Lodge, and George Peele from Oxford.
UNIVERSITY WITS
University Wits, thus, can be called as a group of university-educated playwrights who are often credited with transforming English drama in the 1500s in terms of especially in being an essential link to the development of plot construction, characterization, development of tragic form and representation of their times through their literary works.
University Wits in English Literature : Thinking Literature
The term "University Wits" is related to an association of English writers who thrived during the 16th and the early part of the 17th century under the influence of the Renaissance. The writers who were part of this University Wits were Christopher Marlowe, John Lyly, George Peele, Thomas Lodge, Thomas Kyd, Thomas Nash, and Robert Greene.
History of English Literature: The University Wits
They are known as University Wits. The group includes—John Lyly, George Peele, Robert Greene, Thomas Lodge, Thomas Kyd and Marlowe. With their professionalism, while they rescued English drama from the medieval mire of religion, they also paved the way for Shakespeare. John Lyly was the leader of the group. His receptive mind was hospitable ...
University Wits Literary Yog
The term "University Wits" was coined by literary historian George Saintsbury in the 19th century to refer to a group of writers who were educated at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge and who were influential in the development of English drama. The University Wits included Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, George Peele, John Lyly ...
7. Academic Writing
The writing university students are required to do for their subjects can involve a range of formats - essays, reports, papers based on case studies, literature reviews and short answers/problem solving of tutorial questions all the way through to postgraduate research reports, dissertations and theses.
University Wits
The University Wits were a group of men educated at Oxford and Cambridge in theatre and drama who drastically impacted and transformed popular drama in the late sixteenth century. These men ...
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Wits University seeks to build an inclusive environment free of discrimination based on gender, race, religion and sexual orientation. ... Essay writing at university is nothing like school essay writing. Learn the basics of how to structure an academic essay, and what and how to reference so ...
University Wits in English Literature: An Insight into Their Impact and
Conclusion. In conclusion, the University Wits played a pivotal role in the evolution of English literature. Their daring experimentation, intellectual prowess, and creative vision transformed the theatrical landscape and enriched the world of literature. The enduring impact of their works and the legacy they left behind are testaments to their ...
Introducing University Wits
The term "University Wits" was not used in their lifetime, but was coined by George Saintsbury, a 19th-century journalist and author. Saintsbury argues that the "rising sap" of dramatic creativity in the 1580s showed itself in two separate "branches of the national tree": In the first place, we have the group of university wits, the ...
Who are University Wits? Evaluate their contribution to Elizabethan
The constellation of University wits made the Elizabethan drama more popular with Renaissance humanism and pride of patriotism. English drama for the first time in their hands recognized its potentialities and exuberance. They wrote classical plays, courtly comedies, farces, chronicle plays, melodramas etc.
The University Wits| Literpretation
The University Wits come under the first dramatic period of the Elizabethan period. The term was first used by George Saintsbury in his book A History of the Elizabethan Literature. The University Wits are the generation educated at the Oxford and Cambridge Universities who used their poetry to make theatre, breathed new life into classical models and brought a new audience to the issues and ...
Contribution of university wits in english literature
Before the University Wits began writing, two dramatic traditions were vying for mastery of the English Drama: the classic tradition and the popular theatre tradition. For select intellectual audiences, the scholars or humanists composed scholarly plays in the classical tradition. ... Write an essay on the realism in Robinson Crusoe. Explain ...
Wits Writing Centre
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The University Wits: Their Contribution to English Drama
English Drama has a rich tradition. It culminated in the works of Shakespeare in the Elizabethan Age, but down the lane, it has many beautiful creations. The novel has weakened dramatic ...
University Wits
Hareshwar Roy, January 07, 2017. The drama before Shakespeare found its full flowering with the dramatists called the University Wits. These dramatists were well-educated scholars. They wrote in the closing years of the 16th century. This name was given to them because they were nearly all educated at Oxford or Cambridge University.
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What is the difference between Shakespeare and the University Wits
Expert Answers. The late sixteenth-century playwrights, dubbed by nineteenth-century writer George Saintsbury as the university wits, included such figures as Marlow, Nashe, Lodge, and Lyly and ...
The University Wits BA English Honours Notes BBMKU & VBU.
The University Wits: In this article, we made some points to understand the literary group of the University Wits who founded the Elizabethan school of Drama.These notes help you solve the questions of the second-semester BA English Students of BBMKU and VBU universities. Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!

University Wits in English Literature – Characteristics

Introduction

Meaning and Origin

Characteristics

Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593):

Thomas Kyd (1558-1594):

Robert Greene (1558-1592):

George Peele (1556-1596):

John Lyly (1553-1606):

Thomas Nashe (1567-1601):

Other Writers:

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UNIVERSITY WITS – transitory playwrights who set preclude to realistic literature in Elizabethan age

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University Wits in English Literature

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George Peele

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The University Wits

George Peele (1558-98)

Robert Greene (1558-92)

Thomas Nash (1567-1601)

Thomas Lodge (1558-1625)

Thomas Kyd (1558-94)

Christopher Marlowe (1564-93)

The University Wits More Notes

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