Continued from January 6
The drama until shakespeare
‘Let her who would be rid of him devise
His speedy taking off. As for the mercy
Which he intends to Lear and to Cordelia
The battle done and they within our
power,
Shall never see his pardon; for my state
Stands on me to defend and to debate.’
Act V. Scene 11
King Lear
Robert Greene’s plays were well- received by the dramatists of
repute. Earlier, he had been in London for about six years driven away
from his small town of birth, Stratford-Upon-Avon. It was not as much as
poverty but by his passion for adventure and for the stage. He had
rashly married when he was eighteen, his wife being six years older than
him.
His education had been worthless but was of ardent reading and if not
for his attendance at Stratford Grammer School, he might well have been
ignorant to Masters and Bachelors of Arts of the two universities.
Shakespeare had nothing other than his natural flair as well as genius
that was to surpass every writer the world knew. His first plays were
anonymous and never saw print, after they were tried and tested on
stage. The innovation of Kyd and Marlowe attracted him by their success
which veiled their conspicuous defects. Spurred by ambition, he was able
to write more horrors or tragedies of atrocious vengeance. Young
Shakespeare had a very keen sense of humour and an exhaustible, almost
excessive, flow of words.
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‘King Lear with Cordelia. Act V. |
For instance, Lyly’s witty dialogue inspired him and along with
vigour unknown to Lyly, he wrote ‘Love’s Labour Lost.’ This first major
play was a fantasy that appealed the cultured section of the public by
its subject and style. The University Wits were forced to the dust when
the critics reacted with acclaim. Fresh from this success Shakespeare
indulged in mock-lyricism which had hardly been heard on the English
stage. Such was his early play that provoked Greene’s invective and
those that made him so formidable a rival. Shakespeare’s first romance,
‘The Two Gentlemen of Verona,’ definitely trespassed on Greene’s own
sphere.
This, then was the new playwright who had neither seen the inside of
Oxford nor Cambridge who exposed these remarkable works as well as the
most scholarly, even better than many.
The impartial critic openly acknowledged that the lack of regulation
culture in no way impended him. Some of the University dons who thought
along these same lines, sought his help in their university dramas.
Nothing was more unjust and falser to have thought that because he was
an actor, he was disqualified as a writer. On the contrary the Bard was
in a better position to use the stage to enhance his plays that enhanced
the stage as well.
There was never a writer/actor who had this combination and there was
never to be one in the future. Many critics did attempt to rob him of
his genius with false accusations that he not coped enough to write his
plays. That he never commanded the English, that he never knew what
society was and various humiliating factors. Shakespeare rose gloriously
above these mistaken critics. The public raved over his works and there
was no stopping even until today.
The more Greene attacked him, despised him, Shakespeare was able to
outsmart all the brilliant and refined poets when he published ‘Venus
and Adonis’ and the ‘Rape of the Luccrece’ in quick succession.
He had the distinction of being honoured by an intimate friendship of
one of the greatest peers of the realm, the young Earl of Southhamton to
whom he later dedicated some of his work.
Shakespeare had arrived and the magic wand waved over him. The most
unique thing that happened to him was that he remaind the undisputed
Master of English drama for the next six to seven years. This with his
genius worked together to bring about this supremacy. Greene died in
1592 almost immediately after denouncing Shakespeare. Christopher
Marlowe who was his greatest rival too came to an end the following
year. Kyd died in 1594 and Lodge abandoned his writing opting for
medicine. Lyly withdrew from the stage of the court. Peele ceased
writing because of his deep arrogance. Until the end of the Century, one
dared to rub against Shakespeare as he went from excellence to
brilliance.
The unmodified praise accorded to Shakespeare in his lifetime, dated
from 1598, Meres, a University scholar who imagined himself in the first
rank of writers of tragedies and comedies and who studied Shakespeare’s
writings, endorsed him as a high level playwright whose plays made him
the genius of literature.
William Shakespeare had arrived.
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