Gabriel Harvey (* c. 1552/3; † 1631) was from Saffron Walden, Essex. He first studied at Cambridge and was a good friend of Edmund Spenser. After graduating from Oxford in 1585, he set up as a lawyer in London. Harvey enriched the English language with several words that are still in use today. His attempts to propagate the English hexameter were less successful. He is best known for his literary confrontation with Thomas Nashe. Harvey was one of the most well-read authors from university circles, but was probably not very popular there.1
Richard Harvey, a younger brother of Gabriel, attacked the writers who had interfered in the Martin Marprelate controversy in 1590. Robert Greene, in turn, wrote A Quippe for an Upstart Courtier (1592), an attack on the Harvey brothers Richard, Gabriel and John. In Foure Letters and certaine Sonnets (1592), Gabriel Harvey spoke unflatteringly of Greene, who had already died. Thomas Nashe was so angry about this that the aforementioned controversy between him and Harvey arose in the following years.
- Nashe (1958)↩︎
