University Wits

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Presumed portrayal of Christopher Marlowe

University Wits is a term that stands for a group of English playwrights and pamphlet writers from the late 16th century who studied at Oxford and Cambridge Universities and became popular authors. 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 . Thomas Kyd is also counted, but has probably never studied at a university.

By Manfred Pfister described as academically educated sons penniless or less wealthy families who had no secure position in society. But also literarily gifted members of the lower gentry .

This diverse and talented casual association of London writers and playwrights set the stage for Elizabethan theater . Considered the earliest professional writers in the English language, they paved the way for the writings of William Shakespeare , who was born just two months after Christopher Marlowe.

Satirical print from the pamphlet Greene in Conceit (1598) (in the sense of Concetto ); Depiction of the late Robert Greene by John Dickenson (you can see how he is still writing in his grave in his shroud)

term

George Saintsbury, who coined the term “University Wits”

The word "University Wits" was not used in her lifetime, but was first created by George Saintsbury , a journalist and author of the 19th century. Saintsbury argues that in the 1580s the "rising sap" in the creativity of drama showed itself in two separate "branches of the tree of the nation":

In the first place, we have the group of university wits, the strict 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.

First, we have the group of university wits, the bustling, if not always wise association of trained “men of letters” [for example: men / rulers of the script, belletrists], at the head of which are Lyly, Marlowe, Greene, Peele, Lodge, Nash and probably (his connection to the universities is not known for sure) Kyd. Second, we have the inconsistent group of outsiders, actors, and others who felt compelled to compose literary and principally dramatic composition, who boasted of Shakespeare as their leader, and who could only match him with the imperfect talents of Chettle, Munday, and others which we can mention in this chapter; many of the perfected ornaments of a later time.

Saintsbury describes how the Wits relied on the heavy academic verse drama of Thomas Sackville and the raw but lively and popular conversations of "various farce and interlude writers " to create the first truly powerful dramas in the English language. The University of Wits, “with Marlowe at its head, made blank verse for purposes of drama - detached and cultured as it was - the cultivation of classical models and giving English tragedy its Magna Charta of freedom, subject only to the restrictions of daily life. “However, they did not succeed in“ achieving a perfect closeness to life ”. "It was left to the stage writers ('actor-playwrights'), who rise from humble beginnings, but had a masterly companion in Shakespeare that the old and modern times did not yet see, the improvements of the University Wits made their own, added their own stage experience and with Shakespeare's help created the master drama of the world. "

The term "University Wits" was taken up by many authors of the 20th century to name the group described by Saintsbury, whereby they also use his basic model of theater development. Adolphus William Ward wrote a chapter in The Cambridge History of English Literature (1932) entitled “The Plays of the University Wits”, in which he argued that “the pride in university education that leads to arrogance comes with really valuable ideas and literary methods ”. In 1931 Allardyce Nicoll wrote that “it was left to the so-called University Wits to publicize classical tragedy; a popular tragedy united in structure and conscious of its purpose. "

Characteristics

Title page of Dido, Queen of Carthage , written by Marlowe and Nashe

Edward Albert explains in his History of English Literature (1979) that the pieces of the University Wits always have common characteristics:

(a) There is a penchant for hero subjects like the life stories of great characters like Mohammed and Tamburlaine .

(b) Hero stories require heroic treatment: great abundance and variety; wonderful descriptions, rambling, swollen language, dealing with cruel incidents and emotions. These qualities, excellent if moderate, often enough lead to noise and disorder.

(c) The style was also "heroic". The main goal was to create strong and sounding lines, great attributions and a powerful declamation. This again led to abuse and sheer bombast , talk and, in the worst case, nonsense. In the better examples, like Marlowe's, the result is pretty impressive. In this context it should be noted that the best medium for such a printout was blank verse, which was flexible enough to endure the heavy pressure of these extended procedures.

(d) The subjects were usually tragic, as was their nature, for the playwrights were usually too serious to notice what was considered to be the inferior class of comedy. The general lack of real humor in the early stages of theater is one of the distinguishing features. Humor, if it appeared in the play at all, is crude and immature. Almost the only representative of real comedy writers is Lyly.

The Scottish literary scholar Professor George Kirkpatrick Hunter (1920–2008) believes that the new “humanistic upbringing” of the age allowed them to create “complex commercial theater” “drawing on the nationalization of the religious mood” (“drawing on the nationalization of religious sentiment ”) in such a way that he spoke to an audience that was“ caught up in the contradictions and exemptions that history had imposed ”. While Marlowe was the most famous playwright among them, Robert Greene and Thomas Nashe stood out more for their controversial, risky, and provocative pamphlets that spawned an early form of journalism. Greene was also referred to here as "the first notorious professional writer".

dispute

An apparent attack on Shakespeare as "upstart crow" in Greene's Groats-Worth of Wit pamphlet , published as the work of the late Robert Greene, has led to the view that the two "branches" as they described Saintsbury, were in conflict with each other and that the University Wits rejected the rise of the "actor-playwrights" because Shakespeare did not have the elite education that the Wits had. However, many scholars believe that it was actually written by Henry Chettle , a writer listed by Saintsbury as a member of an "irregularly occurring outsider group" which the Wits allegedly frowned upon. In this pamphlet, Greene asks his colleagues - commonly accepted as Peele, Marlowe and Nashe - to watch out for an upstart who is “embellished with our feathers”.

Dr. Jenny Sager (teacher at the University of Cologne, among others) explains that the term 'University Wits' "has provided generations of critics with a sounding board since its conception from which they could articulate their attitude towards modern research", often by contrasting the allegedly snobbish wits against Shakespeare and others viewed as representatives of little talent. The author and professor of English studies at the University of California, Berkeley Jeffrey Knapp argues that some writers envisioned a "total war" between writers and actors initiated by the Wits. Knapp criticized Richard Helgerson (1940-2008) for claiming that a form of folk theater had been replaced by an elitist "author's theater" due to the work of the Wits, and justified it with the fact that praise for the actors and the willingness to work together are more indicative of theirs Career.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ English literary history, edited by Hans Ulrich Seeber, JB Metzler, Stuttgart 2017 in the Google book search
  2. ↑ a b Jenny Sager: Ed. Melnikoff, Robert Greene : Early Modern Literary Studies . Volume 16, Issue 1
  3. ^ A b c George Saintsbury: History of Elizabethan Literature , MacMillan, London 1887, pp. 60-64
  4. ↑ The Cambridge History of English Literature : General index, Volume 15, p. 9
  5. ^ Allardyce Nicoll, The Theory of Drama , Thomas Y. Crowell, 1931, p. 165
  6. ^ Edward Albert, History of English Literature , Oxford University Press, 1979, p. 89. online at archive.org
  7. ^ GK Hunter, English Drama 1586-1642: The Age of Shakespeare , Clarendon, 1997, p. 24.
  8. ↑ Edward Gieskes: Writing Robert Greene: Essays on England's First Notorious Professional Writer, Aldershot Ashgate., 2008
  9. ^ Terence G. Schoone-Jongen: Shakespeare's Companies , Ashgate Publishing, 2008, p. 28
  10. ↑ Jeffrey Knapp, Shakespeare Only , University of Chicago Press, 2009, p. 62. ISBN 978-0-22-644573-1

Further information