University Wits

The University Wits were a group of late 16th century English playwrights who were educated at the universities (Oxford or Cambridge) and who became playwrights and popular secular writers. Prominent members of this group were Christopher Marlowe, Robert Greene, and Thomas Nashe from Cambridge, and John Lyly, Thomas Lodge, George Peele from Oxford.

This 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 prepared the way for William Shakespeare. However, Shakespeare never was University educated, and Greene calls Shakespeare an "upstart crow" in his pamphlet Greene's Groats-Worth of Wit.

The chief University Wits include:

• Christopher Marlowe
• Robert Greene
• Thomas Nashe
• Thomas Lodge
• George Peele
• John Lyly
• Thomas Kyd

References

• "The University standard of judgment. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature: An Encyclopedia in Eighteen Volumes.". Bartleby.com. http://www.bartleby.com/215/0601.html. Retrieved 2007-12-26.