A Study on University Wits and William Shakespeare

Abstract

According to Ben Johnson “William Shakespeare,  was not of an age, but for all time”, The greatness of Shakespeare, is always in the history of literary world. His writings not for a particular period but to the future and forever. Today, we see a lot of  debate on English Literature and popularity of the writers of the Renaissance of Elizabethan period.  The University Wits were a group of late 16^th century English playwrights who were educated at the universities  of (Oxford or Cambridge) and who became playwrights and popular  writers. Prominent members of this group were Christopher Marlowe, Robert Greene, and Thomas Nashefrom Cambridge, and John Lyly, Thomas Lodge, George Peele from Oxford. The diverse and talented loose association of London writers and dramatists set the stage for the theatrical Renaissance of Elizabethan England. They were looked upon as the literary elite of the day and often ridiculed other playwright such as Shakespeare who did not have a university education or a degree either from Oxford or Cambridge Universities. Greene calls Shakespeare an "upstart crow" in his pamphlet, Groats Worth of wit.