Robert Greene
- This article is about the writer Robert Greene, who lived in the 16th century. There is also an article on the contemprorary writer Robert Greene
Robert Greene (
1558 -
September 3,
1592) was an
English playwright, poet, pamphleteer, and prose writer. He was born in
Norwich, England, and received a bachelor's degree from
Cambridge University in
1575, and later a Master of Arts from
Oxford University.
Greene was an older contemporary of
William Shakespeare, and some scholars speculate that Shakespeare got his start as a playwright rewriting some of Greene's plays. Other scholars have speculated that he was a cousin of Shakespeare, based on the record that on
March 6,
1590, one "Thomas Greene, alias Shakespere" was buried in the
Stratford-on-Avon churchyard, and relatives of this Thomas Greene had business dealings with Shakespeare.
Greene's plays include
James IV and
Friar Bacon and Friar bungay (both c.
1591), as well as
Orlando Furioso, based on the epic poem of
Ludovico Ariosto.
He is most familiar to Shakespeare scholars for his work
Groats-Worth of Wit, which contains the earliest mention of Shakespeare as a member of the
London dramatical community in the form of an accusation that he not only was an untrustworthy actor, but apparently that he committed
plagiarism. This passage quotes a line from Shakespeare's play
Henry VI, part 3, but scholars are not agreed on what Greene's cryptic allusion exactly means.
Greene was notorious for living a dissolute life, and his contemporary
Gabriel Harvey claimed he died after a dinner wherein he overindulged in pickled herring and too much
wine.
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