George Peele
George Peele (baptised 25 July 1556– death date uncertain) was an English translator, poet, and dramatist, who is most noted for his supposed, but not universally accepted, collaboration with William Shakespeare on the play Titus Andronicus.
Many anonymous Elizabethan plays have been attributed to him, but his reputation rests mainly on Edward I, The Old Wives' Tale, The Battle of Alcazar, The Arraignment of Paris, and David and Bethsabe.
His father, James Peele (died 30 December 1585), who appears to have belonged to a Devonshire family, was clerk of Christ's Hospital, a school which was then situated in central London.
[4] George's mother, Anne, died on 1 July 1580, and his father married Christian Widers (d. 1597 in St Christopher le Stocks, a church since demolished) on 3 November 1580.
[10] In 1583, when Albertus Alasco (Albert Laski), a Polish nobleman, was entertained at Christ Church, Peele was entrusted with the arrangement of two Latin plays by William Gager (fl.
Anecdotes of his reckless life were emphasized by the use of his name in connection with the apocryphal Merrie conceited Jests of George Peele (printed in 1607).
"[13] He notes that jest books on famous subjects were common, including William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Colley Cibber, Thomas Killigrew, James Quin, David Garrick, Laurence Sterne, William Congreve, Lord Sandwich, Lord Chesterfield, Samuel Johnson, Falstaff, Tristram Shandy, and Polly Peachum.
[16] "Peele was a product of the middle London," Horne writes, "but his recurrent courtly themes of war and pastoralism show that in his work he aspired to the highest.
Creizenach's view that David and Bethsabe is the "product of a crapulous morality dating from the last years of the poet's dissolute life" as having a questionable basis— "Peele was in most respects like his fellow Elizabethans, morally neither better or worse, aesthetically more perceptive; in technical skill equal to his fellow poets; in the sweetness of his piping superior to all but Marlowe, Spenser, and Shakespeare.
Leicester's reports, summarized in the Calendar of State Papers (Foreign) show amply the suffering of soldiers; they were not paid on time, and their living conditions were deplorable.
Likewise, the Acts of Privy Council for the period after 1590, when soldiers began returning from Willoughby's expedition to France, demonstrate the care of wounded veterans was becoming an increasingly embarrassing problem for Elizabeth's government.
This involved a three-year litigation against Thomas Gurlyn, who was a buyer of soldiers' uncollected wages, who countersued Mary on allegations that she had forged Lawrence Gates's will.
[24] Horne speculates that evidence of Peele's sickness in a letter to Lord Burghley indicates that he was probably unable to work and thus pay legal fees.
His pastoral comedy The Arraignment of Paris was presented by the Children of the Chapel Royal before Queen Elizabeth[27] perhaps as early as 1581, and was printed anonymously in 1584.
This theory is in part due to Peele's predilection for gore, as evidenced in The Battle of Alcazar (acted 1588–1589, printed 1594), published anonymously, which is attributed with much probability to him.
[citation needed] The Old Wives' Tale (printed 1595) was followed by The Love of King David and fair Bethsabe (written ca.
F. G. Fleay sees in it a political satire, and identifies Elizabeth and Leicester as David and Bathsheba, Mary, Queen of Scots as Absalom.
Plays that have been assigned to (or blamed on) Peele include Locrine, The Troublesome Reign of King John, and Parts 1 and 2 of Shakespeare's Henry VI trilogy, in addition to Titus Andronicus.
[30] Among his occasional poems are The Honour of the Garter, which has a prologue containing Peele's judgments on his contemporaries, and Polyhymnia (1590), a blank verse description of the ceremonies attending the retirement of the queen's champion, Sir Henry Lee.
The credit given to Greene and Marlowe for the increased dignity of English dramatic diction, and for the new smoothness infused into blank verse, must certainly be shared by Peele.
Professor Francis Barton Gummere, in a critical essay prefixed to his edition of The Old Wives Tale, puts in another claim for Peele.
In the contrast between the romantic story and the realistic dialogue he sees the first instance of humour quite foreign to the comic business of earlier comedy.
