Everything about Robert Greene 16th Century totally explained
Robert Greene (
1558 –
September 3,
1592) was an
English author and well-known personality. He was born in
Norwich, England, and attended
Cambridge University, receiving a
BA in 1580, and a
MA in 1583 before moving to
London, where he became perhaps the first professional author in England, publishing
autobiography,
plays,
romances, and in other genres while capitalizing on a scandalous reputation.
Life
Greene was born in Norwich in 1558; however biographers disagree as to whether Greene was the son of a humble saddler, or a more prosperous innkeeper with land-owning relatives. He took his B.A. in 1580 and his M.A. in 1583 at Cambridge, and became an M.A. of
Oxford in 1588. Greene claimed to have married a well-off woman named Doll, and to have later abandoned her, after spending a considerable sum of her money.
In
London, Greene became a principal member of the loose association known as the
University Wits, and managed to support himself through his own writing. He lived as a notorious intellectual and rascal, cultivating this reputation himself in
pamphlets describing his adventures amid the seamier characters of
Elizabethan England, and through a memorable appearance, with fashionable clothing and his pointy red beard.
He died September 3, 1592, from what Nashe called a "banquet of Rhenish wine and pickled herring," perhaps having written on his death bed the famous
Groatsworth of Wit Bought with a Million of Repentance and having dispatched a letter to his wife asking her to forgive him and to settle his debts.
Writing
By 1583 Greene had begun his literary career with the publication of a long romance, Mamillia, licensed in 1580. He continued to produce
romances written in a highly wrought style, reaching his highest level in
Pandosto (1588) and Menaphon (1589). Short poems and songs incorporated in some of the romances gave him high rank as a lyrical poet also. By rapid production of such works Greene became one of the first authors in England to support himself with his pen.
Greene wrote prolifically, struggling to support himself (and his recreational habits) in an age when professional authorship was virtually unknown. In his notorious "
Coney-Catching" pamphlets, Greene fashioned himself into a well-known public figure, by telling colorful inside stories of
rakes and rascals duping solid citizens out of their hard-earned money. These stories are always told from the perspective of a repentant former rascal, incorporating many facts of his own life thinly veiled as fiction. He pictures his early riotous living, his marriage and desertion of his wife and child for the sister of a notorious character of the London underworld, his dealings with players, and his success in the production of plays for them.
Greene wrote in a variety of genres. In addition to prose romances, Greene composed numerous moral dialogs, and even some scientific writings on the properties of stones and other matters.
Greene's plays include
The Scottish History of James IV,
Alphonsus, and his greatest popular success,
Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (c. 1589), as well as
Orlando Furioso, based on
Ludovico Ariosto's
epic poem. He may also have had a hand in numerous other plays, and may have written a second part to
Friar Bacon, (which may survive as
John of Bordeaux).
In addition to his acknowledged plays, Greene has been proposed as the author of a range of other dramas, including
The Troublesome Reign of King John, George a Greene, Fair Em, A Knack to Know a Knave, Locrine, Selimus, and
Edward III, among others — even
Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus.
Greene and Shakespeare
He is most familiar to Shakespeare scholars for his pamphlet
Greene's Groats-Worth of Wit (full title:
Greene's Groats-worth of Wit bought with a Million of Repentance), which most scholars agree contains the earliest known mention of Shakespeare as a member of the
London dramatic community. In it, Greene disparages Shakespeare, for being an actor who has the temerity to write plays, and for committing
plagiarism. The passage quotes a line which is purportedly from Shakespeare's play
Henry VI, part 3, but scholars are not agreed on exactly what is meant by this cryptic allusion:
» "...for there's an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he's as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and being an absolute
Johannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey".
Though
anti-Stratfordians argue that the early date of Greene's remark precludes a reference to Shakespeare (who in 1592 had no published works to his name), most scholars feel that Greene's comment refers to Shakespeare, who would in this period be an "upstart" new to the scene as an actor and contributor to plays such as
Henry VI, Parts 1-3 and
King John, which were most likely written and produced (though not published) before Greene's death.
In any case, it should be noted that all or part of the
Groats-Worth may have in fact been written shortly after Greene's death by one of his fellow writers (the pamphlet's printer,
Henry Chettle, is one candidate) hoping to capitalize on it with a lurid tale of death-bed repentance.
Greene's colorful and irresponsible character have led some, for example
Stephen Greenblatt, to speculate that Greene may have served as the model for Shakespeare's
Falstaff.
Principal Works
Plays:
Other Works:
Mamillia (1583)
The Myrrour of Modestie (1584)
The History of Arhasto, King of Denmarke (1584)
Morando, the Tritameron of Love (1584)
Planetomachia (1585)
Penelope’s Web (1587)
Pandosto (1588)
Alcida (1588)
Menaphon (1589)
Greenes Never Too Late (1590)
A Noteable Discovery of Coosnage (1591)
Greene’s Farewell to Folly (1591)
A Groatsworth of Wit Bought with a Million of Repentance (1592)
A Disputation Between a Hee Conny-Catcher and a Shee Conny-Catcher (1592)Further Information
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