History of English Literature - University Wits - A Short View. Lyly, Kyd, Peele, Green, Nashe, Marlow and Lodge.

1. UNIVERSITY WITS
A.Mohanraj M.A., M.Phil., CCFE., (Ph.D)
Assistant Professor of English,
SBK College, Aruppukottai – 626 101.

2.  The term University Wits is applied to a group of scholars, who wrote in
the closing years of sixteenth century.
 Scholars are arrived from Oxford and Cambridge University.
 The group included – John Lyly, George Peele, Robert Greene, Christopher
Marlowe, Thomas Lodge, Thomas Nashe and Thomas Kyd.
 The native tradition at that time was devoid of the artistic excellence of
classical Greek and Roman drama.
 The special quality of the University Wits was that although they too
looked up to the classical drama and had also woven the general pattern of
the drama into their creations, yet they did not imitate it blindly.
 The name coined by George Saintsbury

3. • Euphues / The Anatomy of Wit (1578)
Love story
Euphuism start style:-
- It filled with tricks and alliteration
- Sentences are long and complicated.
• Euphues and His England (1580)
• Eupues is a young gentleman of Athens.
---Most of Lyly’s plays were written for the children of St. Paul – child
actors in royal service.
• Women in the Moon (1597)
• Endimion (1591)
• Midas (1589)
• Campaspe (1584)
Prose comedy
It has charming song
• Mother Bombi (1589)
JOHN LYLY (1554 – 1606)

4.  The Araygnement of Paris (1584)
 Romantic comedy
 A pastoral play in verse
 Written and played before Queen Elizabeth I, whose beauty and virtue are duly celebrated.
 King Edward I (1593)
 A rambling chronicle play
 The Old Wive’s Tale (1591-1594)
 A clever satire on the popular drama of the day
 A play largely in prose
 The Battle of Alcazar (1594)
 Semi-historical play
 Play in verse
 The Love of King David and Fair Bethsabe (1599)
 A play in blank verse
 Sources are mainly biblical
 Highly poeticized account of King David’s seduction of Bethsabe and the death of his son Absalon.
GEORGE PEELE (1558-1598)

5.  Alphonsus, king of Aragon (1587)
 Imitation of Marlowe’s Tamburlaine
 Pandosto / The Triumph of Time
 A prose romance
 Best known as the source for the Winter’s Tale
 One of greene’s best narratives
 Menaphon (1589)
 A prose romance with interludes of verse
 Tells the adventures of the princess Sephestia, shipwrecked on the coast of
Arcadia
 The Honorable Historie of Frier Bacon and Frier Bongay (1589)
 A comedy in verse and prose
 Partially based on a prose pamphlet the famous historie of fryer bacon
 The Scottish Historie of James IV (1592)
 Not a historical play.
 A fictionalized romantic comedy
ROBERT GREENE (1558-1592)ROBERT GREENE (1558-1592)

6.  The Unfortunate Traveller / The Life of Jacke Wilton
(1594)
 First English Historical Novel (considered)
 A prose tale of adventure
 Picaresque novel.
 Dedicated to the earl of Southampton.
 Pierce Penniless in Pierce’s Supererogation (1593) –
Pamphlet
 The Terrors of the Night (1594)
 Summer’s Last Will and Testament (1600)
THOMAS NASHE (1567-1601)

7.  Defence of poetry, music and stage plays
 An anonymous reply to gosson's schoole of abuse
 An Alarum Against Usurers (1584)
 Dedicated Sidney
 The Woundes of Civile war
 A chronicle play
 About war of Roses
 Rosalynde (1590)
 Pastoral romance.
 Style of Lyly’s Euphues
 Shakespeare’s As You Like It.
 A Looking Glasse for London and England (1594)
 Collaboration with Robert Greene.
THOMAS LODGE (1558-1625)

8.  The Spanish Tragedie / Hieronimo is Mad Again (1585)
 Tragedy in blank verse
 Published anonymously in 1592
 Cornelia (1593)
 It is a translated work
THOMAS KYD (1558-1594)

9.  Tamburlaine the Great (1587)
 Centered on one inhuman figure.
 About Scythian shepherd and his thirst for power
 Blank verse.
 The Second part of Tamburlaine the Great (1588)
 Sequel to Tamburlaine the great (1587)
 The Jew of Malta (1589)
 Barabas is one of the prototypes for unscrupulous machiavellian villains
 Blank verse
 “infinite riches in a little room”- barabas
 Edward II (1591)
 A tragedy in blank verse
 The play was an important influence on Shakespeare’s Richard II.
 The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (1592)
 A drama in blank verse and prose
 Elements of miracle plays- good and evil angels.
 The Tragedy of Dido, Queen of Carthage (1593)
 Inferior piece.
 Written by marlowe and nashe
 The Massacre at Paris (1593)
 Unfinished
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE (1564-1593)