UNIVERSITY WITS

 

It belongs to the Elizabethan period or 16^th century which is a period of creative revival in the history of English literature. In the English literature of the renaissance, drama is its chief glory. Drama therefore is the most important subject for the study at this time, it is the most difficult because the diversity of the plays make classification difficult while the lack of sufficient dates makes it almost difficult to obtain a clear outline of the evolution of the theatrical world. During the middle English period theatre was confined with the church. The interludes were a form of drama which finally paved the way for the Elizabethan plays by the University Wits.

The Pre Shakespearean -Dramatist were known as the university wits owing to their association with the university of Cambridge and oxford. They were romantic in their approach and represented the true spirit of renaissance.

The constellations of university wits are John Lyly, George Peele, Robert Greene, Thomas Lodge, Thomas Nash, Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe who revolutionized English drama and brought it to a point where Shakespeare began to experiment upon it. There was a fondness of heroic themes like lives of great figures like Tamburlaine. Heroic themes needed heroic treatment: splendid description, handling violent incidents and speeches .

 Let us now see the contribution of university wits with reference to three dramatists: -

 John Lyly(1554 -1606), the leader of the university wits was Lyly, his education was classical and he selected classical themes and stories for his plays. His famous plays are a most excellent comedy of Alexander and Campaspe and Diogenes (1584), Sapho and Phao (1584), Gallathea (1588). The Man in the Moon (1588), Midas (1589), Mother Bombie (1590), Love’s metamorphosis (1590) and the Women in the Moon (1597).

 He addresses queen Elizabeth where she is strong to thrust back his love for fair Campaspe in order to give himself to his empire. She is Sapho, enamored for a while of Phao the handsome ferryman then mistress of herself and conquering Venus who had been envious of her beauty. She is Cynthia, loved to despair by Endymion who overpowered with sleep by the magic art of Tellus, is by Cynthia’s kiss, brought back to life and respectful adoration. She is the queen of lesbos against whom fail all attempts of Midas whose fatal touch transforms everything into gold.  To these court comedies is Gallathea with a content of love, loves metamorphosis a lively derision of women. Women in the moon and Mother Bombie is a comedy with Italian plot. Except Women in the Moon is written in a kind of prose called euphuistic, often graceful beneath their artifice.

As Lyly wrote for private theatres so his plays differ from other playwrights of this group and being a court dramatist he added to the drama, charm, delicacy, bombastic pieces wrote for performances in public theatres and gave shape to romantic comedy and created atmosphere with humour and romantic fancy which is more idealistic than Greene and Peele and his high poetical blank verse could express lighter sentiments which lacked in Marlowe. There is an introduction of songs symbolical of the movement or mood of a particular comedy owes its popularity.    

 Thomas Kyd (1558 -1594), is one of the most important university wits and the Spanish tragedy occupies an important place in the development of English tragedy. It is a Senecan play adopted to popular requirement. Pompey the great his ‘faire corneliaes tragedy’ (1595), first part of Jeronimo published in 1605 a fore piece to the Spanish tragedy attributed to Kyd, the tragedy of Soliman and Perseda (printed in 1599).

The Spanish tragedy is a landmark in English Tragedy because it is a drama of vengeance, where the author has skillfully woven passion, pathos, fear, madness, suicide and the play are well managed where the murders are thrillingly committed. Albert writes commenting on Spanish tragedy that “There is a largeness of tragical conception about the play that resembles the work of Marlowe; and there are touches of style that dimly foreshadow the great tragical lines of Shakespeare.” Kyd contributed a new type of tragic hero to the stage. There is a largeness of in the character of Hieronimo, Kyd presented hesitating type seen most magnificently in Hamlet. Cornelia (1593) another translated version of work of the French Senecan Garnier.

Thus, Kyd succeeded in producing dialogues that are forceful and capable. Kyd brought revenge theme to the stage. His subtlety of characterization appealed to his generation. The main tragedy of his time had been afflicted princess or grandiloquent supermen. Thus, he discovered the formula for melodrama and his success was great and lasting.

Christopher Marlowe (1564 -1593), the son of a Canterbury shoemaker and a clergyman’s daughter born in 1564 February was a Cambridge man and in 1587 was awarded the MA degree and had a scholarly career at the university. He acquired vast knowledge and stormed into popularity with the publication of his first play Tamburlaine (1587-88). His other plays like Dr. Faustus (published in 1587), the Jew of Malta (1592), Edward II (1593) were all immensely popular. Marlowe was called a ‘wild genius’. John Bakeless recognizes him as ‘the most reckless spirit in all that turbulent age’.

Marlowe raised the subject matter of drama to a high level. His main themes are insatiable spirit of adventure, passions of love and beauty, greatness and littleness of human life. Tamburlaine is a world conqueror, Faustus is in pursuit of universal knowledge, Edward II mingles nobility and worthlessness, heights and depths of human nature. Marlowe imparted individuality where Tamburlaine, king though at the end of drama is born a peasant, the Jew is but a Mediterranean money lender Faustus is an ordinary German doctor and alchemist. There is even tragic conflict in his drama between good and evil forces in Dr Faustus and in Edward II the conflict is represented through external forces. There is inevitability, pity terror.  We feel pity for damned Faustus who underwent intolerable pain due to one fatal flaw of desiring limitless power and terror in the murder scene of Edward II. Tamburlaine who dies miserably, Faustus who is condemned to eternal damnation gives us an ethical significance.

Marlowe had of course the defects of his age. There was no unity in his plot construction. The comic scenes in Dr Faustus are poor as compared to the tragic scenes. Tamburlaine has no construction; demonic tartar marches through the seas of blood from conquest and succumbs to death. Jew of Malta begins greatly but ended with orgy of blood and horror. Edward II has situation crisis and he ignored minor figure.

Commenting on the contribution of the university wits to the British drama Nicoll writes: - ‘The classicist had form but no fire the popular dramatist had interest but little sense of form. Drama, that is to say, was struggling between a well-informed chill and a structureless enthusiasm. The great merit of the university wits was that that they came with their passion and poetry, and their academical training, to unite these two forces, and thus to give Shakespeare a pliable and fitting medium for the expression of his genius.’

Thus the university wits were a new school of professional literary men and in their hands Elizabethan period saw the drama in its adolescence, taught them the beauty and to impose restraint upon the riot of their fancy and prepared the way for the writings of William Shakespeare.