Greene, Robert - George a Greene

Woodcut of Greene 'suted in deaths livery', from John Dickenson's Greene in Conceipt (1598).

By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2013-08-07. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2022-05-15.

The attribution of the play George a Greene to Robert Greene is uncertain.

Scholarly editions

• Dodsley, Robert, ed. A Select Collection of Old Plays (London, 1780), vol. I, pp. 1-58.
• [Dodsley, Robert], ed.; Reed, Isaac, ed.; Gilchrist, Octavius, ed. A Select Collection of Old Plays (London, 1825-27), vol. III, pp. 1-48.
• Greene, Robert. The Plays & Poems of Robert Greene, ed. J. Churton Collins (Oxford, 1905), vol. II, pp. 159-217, 367-77.

Studies and criticism

• Detobel, Robert. 'Shapiro-Tagebuch (3): "Forgeing" oder Forschhung?', Shake-Speare (Neue Shake-speare Gesellschaft, April 14, 2010). Online item.
• Greg, W.W. 'Note on the Society's Publications', [Malone Society] Collections, [vol. 1], pts. IV-V (1911). pp. 285-95; see pp. 288-90, on the authenticity of the MS attribution of the play to Robert Greene.
• Kyungchan Charles Min. 'A Case against Robert Greene’s Authorship of George A Greene', Notes & Queries, vol. 62 (2015), pp. 82-84. Argues on linguistic evidence that the attribution to Robert Greene is untenable.
• Lin, Erika T. "Popular Festivity and the Early Modern Stage: The Case of George a Greene", Theatre Journal, vol. 61 (2009), pp. 271-97.
• Melnikoff, Kirk, ed.; Gieskes, Edward, ed. writing Robert Greene: Essay's on England's First Notorious Professional Writer (Aldershott, 2008).
• Murphy, Donna N. 'George A Greene and Robert Greene', Notes & Queries, Series 3, vol. 59 (2012), pp. 53-58. Argues on linguistic and stylistic evidence that the attribution to Robert Greene should be upheld.
• Nelson, Alan H. 'George Buc, William Shakespeare, and the Folger George a Greene', Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 49 (1998), pp. 74-83.
• Sykes, Henry Dugdale. 'Robert Greene and George a Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield', The Review of English Studies, Original Series, vol. VII (1931), pp. 129-36.
• Sykes, Henry Dugdale. 'Robert Greene and George a Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield', The Review of English Studies, Original Series, vol. IX (1933), pp. 189-90
• Wolther, Jürgen. 'Two Elizabethan Parvenus: Jack of Newbury and George a Greene', Notes & Queries, vol. 25 (1978), pp. 437-39.

Brief mention

• Brereton, J Le Gay. 'Notes on Greene and the Editor from Birmingham', Beiblatt zur Anglia, vol. 18 (1907), pp. 46-62; see pp. 48, 60-61: on mistakes in John Churton Collins's edition of the play.
• Forsythe, R.S. 'Certain Sources of Sir John Oldcastle', Modern Language Notes, vol. XXVI (1911), pp. 104-107; see pp. 105-106 n. 2: scenes in Sir John Oldcastle and Shakespeare's Henry V where an emissary is forced to eat the seal on a document are inspired by George a Greene, Act I, Sc. 3.
• Freeburg, Victor Oscar. Disguise Plots in Elizabethan Drama: a Study in Stage Tradition (Columbia University Studies in English and Comparative Literature) (New York, 1915), pp. 24, 91 n., 107-108, 126 n., 161-62, 219.
• Oliphant, E.H. C. 'Problems of Authorship in Elizabethan Dramatic Lierature', Modern Philology, vol. VIII (1911), pp. 411-59; see pp. 23: regards MS note attributing play to Greene as a forgery; suggests Heywood had a hand in the play; alsos see pp. 435, 459.
• Reynolds, George F. 'Some Principles of Elizabethan Staging. Part II.', Modern Philology, vol. III (1905), pp. 69-97; see p. 76.
• Simpson, Percy. 'Actors and Acting', chapter XXIV in: Lee, Sidney, ed.; Onions, Charles Talbut, ed.; Raleigh, Walter, ed. Shakespeare's England: an Account of the Life and Manners of his Age (Oxford, 1917), vol. II, pp. 240-82; see vol. II, pp. 272-73 for an example from George à Greene of the "very simple principle [which] determines the location of the scene: it is left vague unless the action requires it to be fixed; then the playwright frankly says so through the mouth of an actor."

Allusions

On the character George a Greene

• Magrath, John R. 'The Pinner of Wakefield and Battell Bridge Field', Notes & Queries, Series 12, vol. VI (1920), p. 135.

Notes