TEZPUR UNIVERSITY

ASSIGNMENT
COURSE TITLE: HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

COURSE CODE: EG113

Submitted by: JYOTISHMOI BORA (EGB17007)

THE UNIVERSITY WITS:

The university wits were the notable group of pioneer of English dramatists
who wrote during the last fifteen years of the sixteenth century and who
transformed the native interludes and chronicle plays with their plays of
quality and diversity. Among them, Christopher Marlowe, Robert Green, and
Thomas Nash were graduates from Cambridge University. John lily, Thomas
lodge, George Peele, were from Oxford University. Thomas Kyd was another one
who was not university trained. It is said that they prepared the way for
William Shakespeare. Some general features of their plays are: there was a
fondness of heroic themes, these themes in their plays were treated with heroic
artistry like great fullness and variety, splendid descriptions and long swelling
speeches etc. their style was also heroic. Their themes were usually tragic in
nature.

The most important figure among them was Marlowe. He was compared to
Shakespeare. He was very short lived. Born in 1564 and died of a fistfight in a
tavern by 1593. He was educated in Canterbury and Cambridge. Edward II is
considered his best work. Doctor Faustus, his first play is also a remarkable
one. He glorified the matter of the drama in a sweep of imagination as reflected
in his plays.

The “university wits” were a new school of professional literary men.

Elizabethan period saw the drama in its adolescence and struggling hard to
maturity.
TRIBES OF BEN:

The tribes of ben or the sons of ben were the followers of Ben Jonson and his
poetry and drama. This group of people were predominantly male. They existed
during the first half of the seventeenth century. They followed Ben Jonson’s
philosophy and style of poetry. However unlike Jonson they were loyal to the
king. “Sons of Ben” referred particularly to the dramatists. Tribes of Ben was a
self-description of some cavalier poets who admired the works of Jonson and
were influenced by his poetry. These included popular names like, Robert
Herrick, Richard Lovelace, Sir John Suckling, and Thomas Carew. These men
would become the foremost playwrights and poets of their day, with many of
them forming the poetic movement known as Cavalier Poetry. The cavalier
poets was a school of English poets of the 17th century, which came from the
classes that supported King Charles I during the English Civil War (1642–
1651). Charles, a connoisseur of the fine arts, supported poets who created the
art he craved. These poets in turn grouped themselves with the King and his
service, thus becoming Cavalier Poets. These men of ‘tribes of ben’ used to meet
at taverns in London. The most important meeting place of them was Apollo
Room in the Devil Tavern, near Temple-Bar. The Leges Convivales or ‘Sociable
Rules’ were written by Ben Jonson for the literary dining club he hosted during
the 1620s in the Apollo Room at the Devil and St Dunstan Tavern on Fleet
Street. The meetings involved long nights of eating, drinking, lively
conversation and poetry contests.
CLASSIFICATION & SOURCES OF SHAKESPEAR’S PLAYS:

1. The Two Gentlemen of Verona: a comedy, Source: Shakespeare drew on

the Spanish prose romance Los Siete Libros de la Diana (The Seven Books of
the Diana) by the Portuguese writer Jorge de Montemayor.
2. The Taming of the Shrew: a comedy, although there is no direct literary
source for the induction, the tale of a tinker being duped into believing he is
a lord is one found in many literary traditions.
3. Henry VI, Part 2: a history play, primary source for 2 Henry VI was Edward
Hall's The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancaster and York
(1548).
4. Henry VI, Part 3: a history play, primary source for 3 Henry VI was Edward
Hall's The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancaster and York
(1548).
5. Henry VI, Part 1: a history play, primary source for 1 Henry VI was Edward
Hall's The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancaster and York
(1548).
6. Titus Andronicus: a tragedy, source: Gesta Romanorum, a well-known
thirteenth-century collection of tales, legends, myths, and anecdotes written
in Latin, which took figures and events from history and spun fictional tales
around them.
7. Richard III: a historical play, Shakespeare used Holinshed's Chronicles of
England, Scotland, and Ireland (2nd edition, 1587) as the primary source of
Richard III.
8. Edward III: an Elizabethan play, source is Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles.
9. The Comedy of Errors: one of his most farcical comedies, source: The
Menaechmi, written by the ancient Roman dramatist, Plautus.

1o. Love's Labour's Lost: a comedy, sources can be found in the early plays of
John Lyly, Robert Wilson's The Cobbler's Prophecy (c.1590) and Pierre de la
Primaudaye's L'Academie française (1577).

11. Love's Labour's Won: a lost play, no direct source available.

12. Richard II: a history play, source was Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles.
13. Romeo and Juliet: a tragedy, source is Pyramus and Thisbe, from Ovid's
Metamorphoses.
14. A Midsummer Night's Dream: a comedy, sourcevis Der Busant, a Middle
High German poem and Ovid's Metamorphoses and Chaucer's "The Knight's
Tale" served as inspiration.
15. King John: a history play, source is an anonymous history play, The
Troublesome Reign of King John (c. 1589).
16. The Merchant of Venice: a romantic comedy, source is present in the
14th-century tale Il Pecorone by Giovanni Fiorentino.
17. Henry IV, Part 1: a history play, source Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles,
which in turn drew on Edward Hall's The Union of the Two Illustrious
Families of Lancaster and York.
18. The Merry Wives of Windsor: a comedy, source is Il Pecorone, a collection
of stories by Sir Giovanni Fiorentino.
19. Henry IV, Part 2: a history play, source is Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles;
the publication of the second edition in 1587 provides a terminus a quo for
the play.
20. Much Ado About Nothing: one of the Novelle ("Tales") by Matteo Bandello
of Mantua.
21. Henry V: a history play, source Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles; An earlier
play, the Famous Victories of Henry V.
22. Julius Caesar: a history play, the main source of the play is Thomas
North's translation of Plutarch's Lives.
23. As You Like It: a pastoral comedy, source is Thomas Lodge's Rosalynde,
Euphues Golden Legacie,
24. Hamlet: a tragedy, source is a Norse legend composed by Saxo
Grammaticus in Latin around 1200 AD.
25. Twelfth Night: a comedy, primary source is Italian production Gl'ingannati
(or The Deceived Ones)
26. Troilus and Cressida: a tragedy, sources are Chaucer's version of the tale,
Troilus and Criseyde, but also John Lydgate's Troy Book and Caxton's
translation of the Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye.
27. Sir Thomas More: an Elizabethan play and a dramatic biography, source
based on particular events in the life of the Catholic martyr Thomas More,
who rose to become the Lord Chancellor of England during the reign of
Henry VIII.
28. Measure for Measure: a comedy, source is "The Story of Epitia", a story
from Cinthio's Hecatommithi, first published in 1565.
29. Othello: a tragedy, Othello is an adaptation of the Italian writer Cinthio's
tale "Un Capitano Moro" ("A Moorish Captain") from his Gli Hecatommithi
(1565)
30. All's Well That Ends Well: problem play, The play is based on a tale (tale
nine of day three) of Boccaccio's The Decameron.
31. King Lear: a tragedy , source is the second edition of The Chronicles of
England, Scotlande, and Irelande by Raphael Holinshed, published in 1587.
32. Timon of Athens: a tragedy or a problem play, source is the twenty-eighth
novella of William Painter's Palace of Pleasure.
33. Macbeth: a tragedy, principal source comes from the Daemonologie of King
James published in 1597.
34. Antony and Cleopatra: a tragedy, The principal source for the story is an
English translation of Plutarch's "Life of Mark Antony," from the Lives of the
Noble Grecians and Romans Compared Together.
35. Pericles, Prince of Tyre: a Jacobean play, source is Confessio Amantis
(1393) of John Gower.
36. Coriolanus: a tragedy, source is the "Life of Coriolanus" in Thomas North's
translation of Plutarch's The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans (1579).
37. The Winter's Tale: a comedy, source is Robert Greene's pastoral romance
Pandosto.
38. The Tempest: a tragic-comedy, a masque play, primary sources are
passages from "Naufragium" ("The Shipwreck"), one of the colloquies in
Erasmus's Colloquia Familiaria (1518), and Richard Eden's 1555 translation
of Peter Martyr's De orbo novo (1530).

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