The University Wits is a phrase used to name a group of late 16th-century English playwrights and pamphleteers who were educated at the universities (Oxford or Cambridge) and who became popular secular writers. Prominent members of this group were Christopher Marlowe, Robert Greene, and Thomas Nashe from Cambridge, and John Lyly, Thomas Lodge, and George Peele from Oxford. Thomas Kyd is also sometimes included in the group, though he was not from either Oxford or Cambridge.
This diverse and talented loose association of London writers and dramatists set the stage for the theatrical Renaissance of Elizabethan England. They are identified as among the earliest professional writers in English, and prepared the way for the writings of William Shakespeare, who was born just two months after Marlowe.
The University Wits, on leaving their universities faced the Elizabethan problem discussed by Francis Bacon in his essay, "Of Seditions and Troubles" — schools were producing more scholars than there were opportunities. The University Wits found employment in theatre, not their first choice, but there was little else for them. Their great educations discouraged taking up the humble trades of their fathers — it’s hard to picture the brilliantly educated Marlowe mending shoes. The fear and bitter anxiety caused by this plight for ambitious graduates is the basis for the three Parnassus plays, which were written by Cambridge students in their last year. This is the sting that explains the bitterly competitive feelings between University Wits, and wits who did not attend university.[1][2]
- ^ Saintsbury, George. History of Elizabethan Literature, MacMillan, London, 1887, pp.60-82
- ^ Hunter, G. K. "English Drama 1586-1642 The Age of Shakespeare". Clarendon Press 1997. ISBN 978-0198122135 p. 22.