ROBERT GREENE has gone down in literary history as the man who first let us know that a rustic scribbler from Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire was now in London and was doing quite well, thank you very much.
It all started when Robert Greene (1558-1592) who was a fellow dramatist in Elizabethan London published a pamphlet, A Groatsworth of Wit bought with a Million of Repentance as he lay dying in London. This pamphlet, edited by Henry Chettle, would probably have gone completely unnoticed had it not contained the following diatribe against his fellow writers and dramatists which said:
...for there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tyger's hart wrapt in a Player's hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and beeing an absolute Johannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey.
Why is this important? Because it is absolute proof, literally black on white, that our William was already in London, happily and successfully writing plays for the London stage. In fact, in order to denigrate his more successful rival, Greene even paraphrased one of Shakespeare's speeches from Henry the Sixth, Part Three, (I.iv.137) in which WS describes the weak King Henry's tough, aggressive wife, Margaret of Anjou, who had a tiger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide.
Who was Robert Greene? He was a moderately successful dramatist who led a very unhealthy life and it was a surfeit of wine and pickled herrings that finally brought about his untimely demise in September 1592, aged 34. Not only did he attack our William, but he also castigated three other contemporary "University Wits" as they styled themselves (as opposed to WS who never had a university education,) Christopher Marlowe, -'famous gracer of Tragedians,' Thomas Nashe and George Peele.
Greene studied at Cambridge and then admitted in his writings that he had led a dissolute life in Italy and Spain before he returned to England. Even though he tried to reform himself and even married, he relapsed into his old ways and abandoned his wife and son before 1586 to live among London's lowlife. His mistress was the sister of a notorious thief, "Cutting Ball" who was later hanged at Tyburn (site of Marble Arch today).
He wrote romantic novels such as Menaphon (1589) and Pandosta (1588), the latter being the source for WS plot for Winter's Tale. He also Orlando Furioso and Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay which deals with the 'Faustus' theme, but with a touch of comedy and also James the Fourth, Alphonsus and A Looking Glass for London (with Thomas Lodge).
Greene died in great poverty in the company of his mistress and his landlady and left his unfortunately named son, Fortunatus, to face the world.
Final note: Some scholars think in fact that it was Henry Chettle who wrote the above about Shakespeare and not Robert Greene.
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Next time: The Harts - Shakespeare's descendants.
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