University Wits – the Pre-Shakespearean Dramatists

University Wits

(British Literature)

University Wits – the Pre-Shakespearean Dramatists

A group of 16^th century young men graduating from Oxford and Cambridge universities and who having knowledge of the classical language and literature, had enriched the native stock of plays, thus, preparing the ground for Shakespeare’s advent are known as University Wits. Notable among these pre-Shakespearean dramatists are Thomas Kyd, Robert Greene, Thomas Lodge, Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe, George Peele and John Lyly. Shakespeare, admittedly, turned to good account the legacy inherited from the University Wits.

The credit of adding literary grace to the crude English plays rightly goes to Lyly (1554-1606). His best plays are the ‘Woman in the Moone' (1597) ‘Love's Metamorphosis’ (1607), ‘Mother Bombie’ (1594) and ‘Midas' (1592). Lily’s original way of handling the plot in this high comedies has been universally acknowledged. Greene’s reputation hinges chiefly on ‘Frier Bacon and Frier Bongay', ‘Orlando Furioso’, ‘An Adaptation from Ariosto'. Greene is chiefly noted for his characterization. His plays are generally believed to be pioneering romantic comedies. Thomas Kyd (1558-1594), one of the most important of the University Wits, is supposed to have written a play on ‘Hamlet’, and the 'Tragedy of Solyman and Perseda’. However, Kyd's fame as the dramatist rests on ‘The Spanish Tragedy’ (1589) published anonymously in 1592. It is a crudely melodramatic revenge play closely modelled on ‘Seneca’. Full of high-falutin bombastic diction and written in stilled style, the play is flooded by murder and bloodshed. His ‘Arden of Feversham', better organized than ‘The Spanish Tragedy’, is an early example of domestic tragedy.

Marlowe is by far the greatest of the University Wits. His career as a dramatist rests on such plays as ‘Tamberlain’ Part-I and Part-II, ‘The Jew of Malta’, ‘Edward-II' and ‘The Massacre of Paris’, a fragment7. Marlowe’s masterpiece, however, is ‘Doctor Faustus' which was written in the last year of his life. The play is about the damnable life of a great German scholar, Dr. Faustus who mortgaged his soul to Mephistopheles in lieu of unlimited power. The play, on the one hand, accentuates the Renaissance thirst for knowledge and beauty, on the other, presents the moral that the reward of sin is death. As a dramatist, Marlowe was great enough to be hailed by Peele as ‘Muse's darling’ and even Johnson paid homage to Marlowe’s ‘mighty lines’.

The importance of Lodge and Peele and Nashe as pre-Shakespearean dramatists is purely historical. The reputation of Lodge rests on the didactic trash, 'Looking Glass for London and England’. Nashe is famous for ‘Summer’s Last Will and Testament’, an allegorical play about seasons. Peele is bracketed with the University Wits for his ‘Arraignment of Paris’, a pastoral masque. The University Wits bequeathed to Shakespeare a rich tradition of tragedy, comedy and history plays and it was Shakespeare who enriched each genre with his own genius.

*****

👉 Middle English Alliterative Poetry

👉 Middle English Allegorical Poetry