Short note on University Wits

The University wits are a  group of young dramatists who wrote and performed in London towards the ends of the 16th Century. They are  called " University Wits" because they were the witty students of Cambridge or Oxford.  Marlow, Kyd, Nashe, Greene, Lyly and Peele were the members of this group. In the 1580s,  they  started the public theatre as they found the drama very suitable medium of expression,  they had taken it as means of earning fame and fortune.  They were fresh from the humanistic training in the universities.  They changed the mediaeval forms of the drama in the light of their Classical education.

Thomas Kyd   does not seem to have attended any University.  His   relation with others entitled him to be considered in this group. His main interest was kept in Seneca. He mainly owed to this classical dramatist. Lodge and Nashe were also University wits. But they had little contributions to the theatre.  Christopher Marlow has been rightly called the father of English drama. Before him English drama was in a chaotic state.  John Lyly is the foremost among the University Wits. Actually, the University Wits were learned and scholarly playwrights. They insisted on form  , decorum and dignity even with artificiality and rigidity. They upheld the classical ideals and ridiculed the crudeness of the new English plays.