PRE-SHAKESPEREAN DRAMA OR THE UNIVERSITY WITS:

      The Pre-Shakespearean dramatists are known as the ‘University Wits’. They are so called as nearly all of them were closely associated with oxford and Cambridge University. As we know the condition of the drama that preceded them was precarious and chaotic; - “The classicists had form, but not fire; the popular dramatists had interest, but little sense of form”. They tried and were able to unite the classical conception of the drama and enthusiasm and favour of the popular dramatists. They were usually actors and dramatists. Their training began as actors. They revised old plays and finally became independent writers. They all were more or less acquainted with each other, and most of them led irregular Bohemian lives. Their plays had several features in common.

Albert sums up-

(a)           There was a fondness for heroic themes, such as the lives of great figures like Mohammed and Tamburlaine.

(b)           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.

(c)           Style also was ‘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.

(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. 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.

1) JOHN LYLY:

* Lyly wrote comedies which were intended for the child actors in royal service. His charming romantic Plays are all comedies. They are- Women in the Moon, Endymion, Sappho and Phas, Alexander and Campaspe, Midas, Mother Bombie and Love’s Metamorphosis.

* Lyly elaborated the romantic sentiment in his plays. He brought on the English stage the element of high comedy, full of lively wit and fantastic charm. His wit consists of puns, quibbles and a rapid exchange of repartee.

* Lyly’s subjects are taken mostly from mythology and legends, foreign as well as natives. He introduces pastoral scenes to allegorize his plays. Their characters are personifications of Nature of Concord and Discord.

* He mingled the tragedy and comedy, pathos and humour in his plays. He freely blended the different segments of existence and different worlds. Human figures live and move side by side with the deities of classical mythology.

* He added to English drama the feminine qualities of literature delicacy, grace, charm and subtlety.

* To quote Wyatt and Collins:- “Lyly’s greatest service to the drama consists in his writing plays in prose. Lyly’s sparkling dialogue gave Shakespeare an excellent model to follow and the greater dramatist is probably indebted to him for his first teaching in court style and for hints as to the light touch so proper for the handling of classical legend and fairy lore”.

2) ROBERT GREENE:

* Greene contributed greatly to the development of romantic comedy. In his plays the realism and idealism meet freely.

* In characterization he makes a notable movement; in place of the stock characters of the mystery and miracle plays he introduces individual characters. He brings the suppleness and grace into his comedies. Though his style is not of outstanding merit, his humour is some what genial.

* His plays are five in number. ‘Alphonsus, king of Aragon’ is and imitation for Marlowe’s’ ‘Tamburline’.

* ‘A looking Glass for London and England’ is written with the collaboration with Lodge. It is a mixture of elements from the Moralities and modern Elizabethan satire.

* ‘Orlando Furioso’ is basically written after reading Sir John Harrington’s translation of Aristo.

* In ‘Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay’ we have three distinct worlds mingled together- the world of magic, the world of aristocratic life, and the world of the country.

* In ‘James IV’there is also the fusion of romantic love and humour. It is not a historical play but founded on the imaginary incident in the life of the king.

3) GEORGE PEELE:

His plays include-

* The Araygnement of Paris is a kind of romantic comedy.

* The Famous Chronicle of King Edward the First, is a rambling chronicle-play.

* The old Wives’ Tale is a clever satire on the popular drama of the day.

 * The Love of King David and Fair Bethsabe is an interesting play.

* Peele’s style can be violent to the point of absurdity; but he has his moments of real poetry; he can handle his blank verse with move ease and variety than was common at the time; he is fluent; he has humour and a fair amount of pathos. In short, he represents a great advance upon the earliest drama, and is perhaps one of the most attractive among the playwrights of the time.

4) THOMAS NASH:

     Nash took active parting the political affairs. He was a born journalist. He has no creditable achievement as a dramatist. He supposed to have finished Marlowe’s ‘Dido’.

His only surviving play is – ‘summer’s Last will and Testament’. It is a kind of satirical masque about the seasons.

5) THOMAS LODGE:

His dramatic work is small in quality. He probably collaborated with Shakespeare in ‘Henry-VI’ and Greene’s – “A Looking Glass for London and England”. His only surviving play is- ‘The Wounds of Civil War’, a play of the old loose historical type dealing with Marius and Sulla.

6) THOMAS KYD:

Thomas Kyd is one of the most important of University Wits. He was however influenced by Seneca. Of his surviving plays the most important is -

“The Spanish Tragedie”:

 The central motif of the play is the revenge of Heronimo,   Marshal of the Spain for the murder of his son Horation. Heronimo appeals to heaven for justice. He then appeals to the king. Having failed to get justice, he takes upon himself the task. Much of his dramatic works has been lost. As a revenge tragedy its horrific plot, involving murder, frenzy and sudden death, gave the play a great and lasting popularity. Shakespeare is much indebted for the matching of the plot of his famous Hamlet to this tragedy of Kyd. Kid’s dramatic style, though ranting, has occasional flashes of rare beauty which foreshadow the great tragical lines of Shakespeare.

* Kid’s only other surviving play known as “Cornilia” (1593), a translation from the French Senecan, Garnier, but his hand has been sought in many plays including “Soliman and Perseda” the “First part of Jeronimo”, an attempt after the success of “The Spanish Tragedie”, to write an introductory play to it, and Shakespeare’s “Titus Andronicus”.

7) CHRISHPER MARLOWE:  

Marlowe is one of the remarkable characters of the English Renaissance, and the greatest of Shakespeare’s predecessors. He is famous for four dramas, now known as the Marlowesque or one-man type of tragedy, each revolving about one central personality who is consumed by the lust of power.

* The first of these is Tamburlaine. It is the story of Timur the Tartar. Timur begins as a shepherd chief, who first rebels and then triumphs over the Persian king. Intoxicated by his success, Timur rushes like a tempest over the whole East. Seated on his chariot drawn by captive kings, with a caged emperor before him, he boasts of his power which overrides all things. Then, afflicted with disease, he raves against the gods and would overthrow them as he has overthrown earthly rulers.

* Tamburlaine is an epic rather than a drama; but one can understand its instant success with a people only half civilized, fond of military glory, and the instant adoption of its “mighty line” as the instrument of all dramatic expression.

* “Dr.Faustus” is his second play. It is one of the best of Marlowe’s works. The story is that of a scholar who longs for infinite knowledge, and who turns from Theology, Philosophy, Medicine, and Law, the four sciences of the time, to the study of magic, much as a child might turn from jewels to tinsel and colored paper. In order to learn magic he sells himself to the devil, on condition that he shall have twenty-four years of absolute power and knowledge. The play is the story of those twenty-four years. Like Tamburlaine, it is lacking in dramatic construction, but has an unusual number of passages of rare poetic beauty.

* Marlowe’s third play is The Jew of Malta, a study of the lust for wealth, which centers about Barabas. It is a terrible old money lender, strongly suggestive of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. The first part of the play is well constructed, showing a decided advance, but the last part is an accumulation of melodramatic horrors. Barabas is checked in his murderous career by falling into a boiling caldron which he had prepared for another, and dies blaspheming, his only regret being that he has not done more evil in his life.

* Marlowe’s last play is Edward II. It is a tragic study of a king’s weakness and misery. In point of style and dramatic construction, it is by far the best of Marlowe’s plays, and is a worthy predecessor of Shakespeare’s historical drama.

 * Marlowe is the only dramatist of the time who is ever compared with Shakespeare. When we remember that he died at twenty-nine, probably before Shakespeare had produced a single great play, we must wonder what he might have done had he outlived his wretched youth and become a man. Here and there his work is remarkable for its splendid imagination, for the stateliness of its verse, and for its rare bits of poetic beauty, but in dramatic instinct, in wide knowledge of human life, in humor, in delineation of woman’s character, in the delicate fancy which presents an Ariel as perfectly as a Macbeth, - in a word, in all that makes a dramatic genius, Shakespeare stands alone. Marlowe simply prepared the way for the master who was to follow.

     * The University Wits brought English drama to the point where Shakespeare began to experiment upon it. Much of Shakespeare’s works owed in many respects to previous plays. Each of the University Wits added or emphasize same essential element which appeared later in the works of Shakespeare. Actually they created the platform from where Shakespeare started his journey.