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University Wits TCD MS 10971/3: University Wits English dramatists flourishing in the latter part of the sixteenth century and known collectively as the ‘University Wits’: John Lyly, George Peele, Thomas Lodge, Robert Greene, Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nash(e). PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION 5 fols, ts, rectos only. Loose leaves, 209 x 270mm. Carbon typescript notes in black ink on unlined, flimsy, paper with watermark “Japon L.T.& Cie.” The typed numerals appear lighter in tone and less smudged than the letters. REMARKS Notes, from an unidentified survey, consisting of brief summaries of the works and relevance of the first four of the six authors listed on folio 1. The notes for Lyly and Greene are more extensive than those for Peele and Lodge. Since the notes on each author start on a new page, either Beckett intended, but never completed, a more extended study, or the notes on the last two authors on the initial list have been lost. The rust marks from paper clips demonstrate that the present last page has been the last page for some time, arguing for the former possibility.In Dream of Fair to Middling Women, there doesn’t seem to be any allusions to the “University Wits” in this manuscript. If Beckett had done the research on them when he was writing Dream, it would seem unlike him not to make use of it there. The notes, therefore, are not likely to date before mid-1932. But Lyly’s “Italianate Englishman” (fol 1) may have been the inspiration prompting the narrator of “What a Misfortune” to describe the author of Dream of Fair to Middling Women as an “Italianate Irishman” (MPTK, 153). If John Pilling is cor- rect to “presume that ‘What a misfortune’ (which contains allusions to Swift) is concurrent with Beckett reading Swift during the first few months of 1933” (BBG, 96), then the present manuscript might be dated to around that time as well. Additionally, as John Pilling (this issue 218), James Knowlson (K, 205, 217, 746 n.115 & 116) and C. J. 130 Catalogue of “Notes diverse holo” Ackerley (Demented Particulars, passim) all note, quotations from Greene and Peele appear in Murphy (including some that are entries in this manuscript) making the period 1933-34 a likely one for their crea- tion. In his essay in this issue, John Pilling also logs the “notesnatch- ing” from Marlowe in the Whoroscope notebook (which doesn’t over- lap the works listed in this manuscript, and from Greene and Peele (which does) – a further indication that notes on Marlowe might once have been part of the present set of notes. OUTLINE OF CONTENTS Folios 1 The “University Wits”. John Lyly (1554-1606) George Peele (1558-1597) Thomas Lodge (1558-1625) Robert Greene (1560-1593) Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) Thomas Nash (1567-1601) John Lyly (1554-1606) Alexander & Campaspe Sappho & Phaon Endymion Midas Mother Bombie etc., etc. Paragraph discussing prose comedies above: their important characteristics and influence on Shakespeare and Jonson. Euphues, The Anatomy of Wit (1579) Euphues & His England (1580) Three paragraph discussion of the didactic romances above: Work important for its style, characterized by an abuse of antithesis, alliteration, mythological & pseudo- scientific metaphor, and similar ornaments, corresponding to the desire of the court & of the “Italianate Englishman” to “hear finer speech than their language will allow” (Preface to Euphues). Influence on Gibbon, Pater, Newman, Sidney, Shakespeare, et al. Immense popularity in its time. 2 Example’s (sic) of Lyly’s style: (Three quotations). .
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