Curiously enough, as Mr Churton Collins has pointed out, Greene, except in the two pamphlets written just before his death, never refers to his having written plays; and before 1592 his contemporaries are equally silent as to his labours as a playwright. Only four plays remain to us of which he was indisputably the sole author. The earliest of these seems to have been the Comicall History of Alphonsus, King of Arragon, of which Henslowe’s Diary contains no trace. But it can hardly have been first acted long after the production of Marlowe’s Tamburlaine, which had, in all probability, been brought on the stage in 1587. For this play, “comical” only in the negative sense of having a happy ending, was manifestly written in emulation as well as in direct imitation of Marlowe’s tragedy. While Greene cannot have thought himself capable of surpassing Marlowe as a tragic poet, he very probably wished to outdo him in “business,” and to equal him in the rant which was sure to bring down at least part of the house. Alphonsus is a history proper—a dramatized chronicle or narrative of warlike events. Its fame could never equal that of Marlowe’s tragedy; but its composition showed that Greene could seek to rival the most popular drama of the day, without falling very far short of his model.
In the Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (not known to have been acted before February, 1592, but probably written in 1589) Greene once more attempted to emulate Marlowe; and he succeeded in producing a masterpiece of his own. Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, which doubtless suggested the composition of Greene’s comedy, reveals the mighty tragic genius of its author; but Greene resolved on an altogether distinct treatment of a cognate theme. Interweaving with the popular tale of Friar Bacon and his wondrous doings a charming idyl (so far as we know, of his own invention), the story of Prince Edward’s love for the Fair Maid of Fressingfield, he produced a comedy brimful of amusing action and genial fun. Friar Bacon remains a dramatic picture of English Elizabethan life with which The Merry Wives alone can vie; and not even the ultra-classicism in the similes of its diction can destroy the naturalness which constitutes its perennial charm. The History of Orlando Furioso, one of the Twelve Peeres of France has on unsatisfactory evidence been dated as before 1586, and is known to have been acted on the 21st of February 1592. It is a free dramatic adaptation of Ariosto, Harington’s translation of whom appeared in 1591, and who in one passage is textually quoted; and it contains a large variety of characters and a superabundance oí action. Fairly lucid in arrangement and fluent in style, the treatment of the madness oí Orlando lacks tragic power. Very few dramatists from Sophocles to Shakespeare have succeeded in subordinating the grotesque effect of madness to the tragic; and Greene is not to be included in the list.
In The Scottish Historie of James IV. (acted 1592, licensed for publication 1594) Greene seems to have reached the climax of his dramatic powers. The “historical” character of this play is pure pretence. The story is taken from one of Giraldi Cinthio’s tales. Its theme is the illicit passion of King James for the chaste lady Ida, to obtain whose hand he endeavours, at the suggestion of a villain called Ateukin, to make away with his own wife. She escapes in doublet and hose, attended by her faithful dwarf; but, on her father’s making war upon her husband to avenge her wrongs, she brings about a reconciliation between them. Not only is this well-constructed story effectively worked out, but the characters are vigorously drawn, and in Ateukin there is a touch of Iago. The fooling by Slipper, the clown of the piece, is unexceptionable; and, lest even so the play should hang heavy on the audience, its action is carried off by a “pleasant comédie”—i.e. a prelude and some dances between the acts—“presented by Oboram, King of Fayeries,” who is, however, a very different person from the Oberon of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
George-a-Greene the Pinner of Wakefield (acted 1593, printed 1599), a delightful picture of English life fully worthy of the author of Friar Bungay, has been attributed to him; but the external evidence is very slight, and the internal unconvincing. Of the comedy of Fair Em, which resembles Friar Bacon in more than one point, Greene cannot have been the author; the question as to the priority between the two plays is not so easily solved. The conjecture as to his supposed share in the plays on which the second and third parts of Henry VI. are founded has been already referred to. He was certainly joint author with Thomas Lodge of the curious drama called A Looking Glasse for London and England (acted in 1592 and printed in 1594)—a dramatic apologue conveying to the living generation of Englishmen the warning of Nineveh’s corruption and prophesied doom. The lesson was frequently repeated in the streets of London by the “Ninevitical motions” of the puppets; but there are both fire and wealth of language in Greene and Lodge’s oratory. The comic element is not absent, being supplied in abundance by Adam, the clown of the piece, who belongs to the family of Slipper, and of Friar Bacon’s servant, Miles.
Greene’s dramatic genius has nothing in it of the intensity of Marlowe’s tragic muse; nor perhaps does he ever equal Peele at his best. On the other hand, his dramatic poetry is occasionally animated with the breezy freshness which no artifice can simulate. He had considerable constructive skill, but he has created no character of commanding power—unless Ateukin be excepted; but his personages are living men and women, and marked out from one another with a vigorous but far from rude hand. His comic humour is undeniable, and he had the gift of light and graceful dialogue. His diction is overloaded with classical ornament, but his versification is easy and fluent, and its cadence is at times singularly sweet. He creates his best effects by the simplest means; and he is indisputably one of the most attractive of early English dramatic authors.
Greene’s dramatic works and poems were edited by Alexander Dyce in 1831 with a life of the author. This edition was reissued in one volume in 1858. His complete works were edited for the Huth Library by A. B. Grosart. This issue (1881-1886) contains a translation of Nicholas Storojhenko’s monograph on Greene (Moscow, 1878). Greene’s plays and poems were edited with introductions and notes by J. Churton Collins in 2 vols. (Oxford, 1905); the general introduction to this edition has superseded previous accounts of Greene and his dramatic and lyrical writings. An account of his pamphlets is to be found in J. J. Jusserand’s English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare (Eng. trans., 1890). See also W. Bernhardi, Robert Greenes Leben und Schriften (1874); F. M. Bodenstedt, in Shakespeare’s Zeitgenossen und ihre Werke (1858); and an introduction by A. W. Ward to Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (Oxford, 1886, 4th ed., 1901).
(A. W. W.)
GREENFIELD, a township and the county-seat of Franklin county, in N.E. Massachusetts, U.S.A., including an area of 20 sq. m. of meadow and hill country, watered by the Green and Deerfield rivers and various small tributaries. Pop. (1890) 5252, (1900) 7927, of whom 1431 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 10,427. The principal village, of the same name as the township, is situated on the N. bank of the Deerfield river, and on the Boston & Maine railway and the Connecticut Valley street railway (electric). Among Greenfield’s manufactures are cutlery, machinery, and taps and dies. Greenfield, originally part of Deerfield, was settled about 1682, was established as a “district” in 1753, and on the 23rd of August 1775 was, by a general Act, separated from Deerfield and incorporated as a separate township, although it had assumed full township rights in 1774 by sending delegates to the Provincial Congress. In 1793 part of it was taken to form the township of Gill; in 1838 part of it was annexed to Bernardston; and in 1896 it annexed a part of Deerfield. It was much disaffected at the time of Shays’s Rebellion.
See F. M. Thompson, History of Greenfield (2 vols., Greenfield, 1904).