Harvey-Nashe-Controversy

Between 1592 and 1596, Thomas Nashe and Gabriel Harvey engaged in a literary dispute in several works. Apart from an unflattering remark about Richard Harvey mentioned by Nashe in 1596 in Have With You To Saffron-Walden, Or, Gabriell Harveys hunt is up, Marlowe is unlikely to have intervened in the quarrel. Over the years, he became a subject of dispute between Harvey and Nashe. By his own account, Nashe knew Harvey from Cambridge. We do not know whether this also applies to Marlowe. There is no doubt about the friendship between Nashe and Marlowe. This was probably the reason why Marlowe was mentioned by Harvey in the first place.¹

The Back Story

In 1589 the Martin Marprelate controversy began. In Papp with a Hatchet, a pamphlet by the anti-Martinists written most probably by John Lyly an attack on Gabriel Harvey was placed . He himself remained silent on the subject, but his brother Richard Harvey, in Plain Percival, the Peace-Maker and A Theologicall Discovrse of the Lamb of God and his enemies, attacked all writers who were anti-Martinists, addressing Thomas Nashe directly. In 1592, the Martin Marprelate controversy long over, Robert Greene published a biting commentary on the Harvey brothers in A Quip for an Upstart Courtier. They were not mentioned by name, but it was obvious who was meant. Greene deleted this passage after the first publication, but it still ended up in the hands of Gabriel Harvey. In September Greene died and Harvey published a short paper describing Greene’s death in a not very respectful way. Nashe was so angry about this that he lashed out at Richard Harvey in Pierce Penilesse. He did not speak out, his elder brother did.

The Controversy

Gabriel Harvey: Foure Letters, and certaine Sonnets

At the end of 1592, Harvey presented four letters, the second being a reprint of the pamphlet on Greene’s death. Harvey’s tone towards Nashe is not hostile, rather condescending.

Thomas Nashe: Strange Newes

At the beginning of 1593, Nashe reacted strongly to Harvey’s Foure Letters, and certaine Sonnets.

Thomas Nashe: Christ’s Tears over Jerusalem (1593)

Harvey was already working on a response to Strange News when Nashe tried to end the dispute and offered a reconciliation in Christ’s Tears over Jerusalem. It could never be clarified whether Harvey had read this work before his next publications, whether Nashe’s offer did not seem serious enough to him, or whether the fact that Nashe, like Piero Aretino, with whom he constantly compared him, was now writing religious texts in addition to ribald ones, excited him even more. Two of Harvey’s writings appeared in close succession.

Gabriel Harvey: Pierce’s Supererogation, or A New Praise of the Old Ass

Harvey’s first mentions of Marlowe are aimed at criticising Nashe’s writing style.

"His [Nashe’s] gayeſt flooriſhes, are but Gaſcoignes weedes, or Tarletons trickes, or Greenes crankes, or Marlowes brauados : his ieſtes, but the dregges of comon ſcurrilitie, the / ſhreds of the theater, or the of-ſfcouring of new Pamflets :"²

Nashe’s art consists of the breadcrumbs of Gascoigne³, the tricks of Tarleton⁴, the cranks of Greene and the boasts of Marlowe.

And Harvey has even more to complain about. Instead of art, wit and honesty, the reader is offered euphemism, Tarletonism and Scoganism⁵.

"They that haue leyſure, to caft-away, (who hath not ſome idle howers to loofe ?) may peruſe his guegawes with indifferency : and finde no Art, but Euphuiſme ; no witt, but Tarletoniſme ; no honeſty, but pure Scogginiſme; no Religion, but preciſe Marlowiſme; no confideration, but meere Naſhery:"⁶

For Harvey, the absence of religion is precise Marloweism. He was to return to this point in his next writing. However, he first defamed Nashe as someone who abuses his supporters and friends. While Harvey keeps quiet about Nashe’s patrons, he lists some of his friends: Christopher Beeston⁷, Greene, Marlowe and Henry Chettle.

"that ſhamefully, and odiouſly miſuſeth euery frend, or acquaintance, as he hath ſerued ſome of his fauorableſt Patrons, (whom for certain reſpectes I am not to name), M. Apis Lapis, Greene, Marlow, Chettle, and whom not?"⁸

Gabriel Harvey: A New Letter of Notable Contents, together with a Strange Sonnet entitled Gorgon, or the Wonderful Year

From today’s perspective, this writing could be called Gabriel Harvey’s Revenge On Posterity. The significance of the work has been puzzled over for almost 140 years. The pamphlet begins with a long letter from Harvey to his printer John Wolfe, dated 26 September 1593.
After taking offense at Nashe’s blasphemies, Harvey in turn draws comparisons with other authors. He associates Robert Greene with the Roman emperor Julian⁹, Nashe with Piero Aretino and Marlowe with Lucian of Samosata.

"Though Greene were a lulian, and Marlow a Lucian : yet I would be loth, He ſhould be an Aretin :"¹⁰

Greene is the pagan, Marlowe the scoffer and Nashe the atheist.¹¹ Nashe had mentioned the two ancient writers in the same breath in 1589 in the anti-Martinist pamphlet Martins months minde. Compared with Marprelate were:

"Lucian the A­theist, was neuer so irreligious; nor euer Iu­lian the runnagate so blasphemous."¹²

Somewhat later, Harvey also makes use of Pliny in addition to Lucian.¹³

"Plinyes, and Lucians religion may ruffle, and ſcoffe awhile : but extreme Vanitie is the beſt beginning of that brauery, and extreme Miſerie the beſt end of that felicity. Greene, and Marlow might admoniſh other to aduiſe themſelues : and I pray God, the promiſed Teares of Repentance, proue not the Teares of the Onion vpon the Theater.¹⁴

This passage reads as if Greene and Marlowe had advised Harvey to be a little more self-critical. This is not elaborated on, because the very next sentence revolves around the announced repentance – of Greene or Marlowe or both? There is a pamphlet entitled The repentance of Robert Greene, which Greene is said to have written shortly before his death. (The entry in the Stationers' Register was made on 16 October 1592). In it, Greene renounces his life of vice and repents of all his sins. Nothing of the kind is known of Marlowe. Why does Harvey assume that, like Greene, he has promised to repent of anything?

Both quotes give the impression that Greene and Marlowe were still alive.¹⁵ Now it is fairly certain that Pierce’s Supererogation, which also consists of several parts, although it was not printed until October 1593, was written at different times. Hale Moore assumes a period between early May and mid-August 1593, with the main part written during Marlowe’s lifetime.¹⁶ Even if something similar were true of A New Letter and/or Harvey did not yet know of Marlowe’s death, Greene had already died in 1592.

So much for the understandable part. The letter is not followed by a sonnet, as announced in the title. Rather, it is a sonnet, a stanza, a postscript and a gloss. What the title is clearly right about is the term "strange" in the sense of "mysterious".

Gorgon, or the Wonderful year

From the mid-16th century onwards, prophecies emerged predicting an annus horribilis for 1588, if not the end of the world altogether.¹⁷ In the first stanza of the sonnet, Harvey describes the world’s fear of a year in which the greatest miracle was that there was none. (England’s victory over the Spanish Armada is not taken into account). According to the second verse, however, miraculous things happened in 1593: Navarre’s rapprochement with Rome, peace between Spain and France or the defeat of Charles de Lorraine-Guise, Duke of Mayenne. Others, such as the death of Alexander Farnese, the Battle of Lepanto or the affair of the Duke of Guise and the David Mémorial, happened partly years earlier. After all these historically not insignificant events, the last in the enumeration is: "Weepe Powles, thy Tamberlaine voutſafes to dye."¹⁸ and the envoi reveals which miracle failed to materialise:

"The hugeſt miracle remaines behinde,
The ſecond Shakerley Raſh-ſwaſh to binde."¹⁹

A Stanza declarative: to the Lovers of admirable Workes

Instead of an explanation, there is suddenly talk of a noblewoman who – oh miracle – managed to tame this ominous second Shakerley after all.

Until now, one could at least guess at the content. For the last two parts, even that is difficult.

The writer’s postscript, or a friendly caveat to the second Shakerley of Paul’s

In his sleep, Harvey hears the epitaph for a most unpleasant contemporary, a descendant of Rabelais’s giant Gargantua, a braggart like Rodomonte from Matteo Maria Boiardo Orlando innamorato and Ludovico Ariosto Orlando furioso, who has been prowling outside St Paul’s.

Gloss

This braggart, proud as Juno’s peacock, feared neither God nor devil. But the plague, which despised his pride and smiled at his Tamburlaine-like mockery, carried him off. But contrary to Harvey’s hopes, there is no peace outside St Paul’s. He warns the city of a new spectre, but he predicts a bad end for it.

The two mentions of Tamburlaine were enough to see in the Gorgon sonnet (In this the three appendices are included.) Harvey’s reckoning with Marlowe, whom he mistakenly believed had died of the plague. This did seem a little strange and one also had to admit that one could not explain what Harvey was actually trying to say about Marlowe with his tirade. Nevertheless, for almost a hundred years this interpretation was passed on from one critic to the next as a kind of incontrovertible fact.²⁰ In 1992, Charles Nicholl challenged the common interpretation of the sonnet by drawing on information that was largely already known.²¹ If Harvey mentions a second Shakerley, who was the first? The name occurs in Nashe, Harvey and Francis Meres²². Ronald B. McKerrow had already referred to one Peter Shakerley. He seemed to have spent a lot of time in St Paul’s, where he was noticed for his boastful manner and "[…] it seems not impossible that he was a half-witted fellow who subsisted on the charity of those whom he amused."²³ According to Nicholl, Shakerley was buried at St Gregory-by-St-Paul’s on 28 September 1593.

"Everything in Harvey’s poem makes sense when it is read this way: as a mock-oratorical funeral elegy for Peter Shakerley of St Paul’s, and an admonition to Nashe, the ’second Shakerley', to watch his step."²⁴

I wouldn’t say everything makes sense now with Harvey, but it seems to make more sense. Nicholl’s theory, in any case, found favour.²⁵ The whole dispute is one between Harvey and Nashe. Marlowe is a marginal figure in it. Harvey paid him no particular attention, either as a person or as an author. Why should he suddenly have to deal with him in a sonnet including several appendices, or to use Hamlet’s words: what was Marlowe to him, that he should weep for him, even if it were tears of joy? Nashe’s reactions did not indicate that he had understood the Gorgon sonnet as a massive attack on Marlowe, for in subsequent writings he defended his friends defamed by Harvey without addressing the sonnet.

Thomas Nashe: Christ’s Tears over Jerusalem (1594)

Nashe was extremely angry, so he withdrew his offer of reconciliation in the renewed edition of Christ’s Tears over Jerusalem.

"Maiſter Lillie, poore deceaſed Kit Marlow, reuerent Doctor Perne, with a hundred other quiet ſenſeleſſe carkaſſes before the coqueſt departed, in the same worke he hath moſt notoriouſly & viely dealt with ; and to conclude, he hath proued him felſe to be the only Gabriel Graue-digger vnder heauen."²⁶

John Lyly was still alive at that time. Andrew Perne, Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University and Dean of Ely, had died in 1589. He and Harvey had been at odds since the late 1570s. For Nashe, Harvey is a slanderer who attacks the deceased like Perne and Marlowe, which makes him seem cowardly besides.

Although this renewed the feud, Harvey failed to respond and two years passed before Nashe followed suit.

Thomas Nashe: Have With You To Saffron-Walden, Or, Gabriell Harveys hunt is up

In 1596 Nashe commented on Harvey’s accusation from A New Letter of Notable Contents that he had always been a false friend.

"Further than further bee it knowne (ſince I had one further before) I neuer abuſd Marloe, Greene, Chettle in my life, nor anie of my frends that vſde me like a frend ; which both Marloe and Greene (if they were aliue) vnder their hands would teſtifie, euen as Harry Chettle hath in a ſhort note here."²⁷

In the printed note, Chettle called Harvey a liar for claiming that Nashe had not shown himself to be a friend to him. How much Harvey did Greene and Marlowe wrong in this and in everything else, Nashe emphasised again a few lines later.

"How he hath handled Greene and Marloe, ſince their deaths, thoſe that read his Bookes may iudge:"²⁸

The End

It was an end with horror. On 11 June 1599, Archbishop John Witgift decreed that all satirical writings by Nashe, as well as Harvey, be confiscated and not reissued.

And The Winner Is …

In 1580, Gabriel Harvey tried his hand at satire, which earned him the accusation that he had written a disguised attack on Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford. Harvey regretted this literary experiment years later. Both he and his brother Richard were victims of satirists. Harvey was therefore hostile to this genre. It was precisely on this field that Thomas Nashe challenged him. Nashe loved satire. He saw himself as an English Piero Aretino and when Harvey began to compare him repeatedly to this, Nashe was not – as Harvey had thought – offended but delighted. Nashe saw the debate as a form of flyting.²⁹ Harvey could not handle it. He insisted on his seriousness and dignity in confronting an opponent who took neither him nor the dispute seriously. In the end, he was defeated by Nashe, to whom he was actually superior in education and intellect.³⁰

Conclusion

In Thomas Nashe, Marlowe had a real friend. This is one of the most personal pieces of information we have about him. At the same time, Nashe, who would have so much to report, reveals nothing else. Harvey – disregarding the Gorgon sonnet – is much more forthcoming. In his eyes, Marlowe is a mocker with a boastful style who lacks religion and whom he names in the same breath as anti-Christian authors of antiquity such as Lucian or Pliny. But, instead of his conviction, what of it sprang from a desire to annoy Nashe?

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1. Moore (1926)↩︎
2. Harvey (1884a), 115↩︎
3. George Gascoigne (1525-1577) was an English translator and poet.↩︎
4. Richard Tarlton († 1588) was one of the most famous clowns of Elizabethan theatre. His improvised verses were widely known. He wrote at least one play, but also several pamphlets.↩︎
5. In case anyone unexpectedly doesn’t know, scoganism is dirty jokes. The term probably goes back to John Scogan, a jester at the court of Edward IV (1442-1483).↩︎
6. Harvey (1884a), 234↩︎
7. It is not entirely clear whether this means this Christopher Beeston (* ~1579-1638). If so, he was an actor and important theatre manager. Nashe already mentioned the name in Strange News. The Latin "apis" (bee) and "lapsi" (stone) make "bee" and "stone" in English.↩︎
8. Harvey (1884a), 322↩︎
9. Flavius Claudius Iulianus (332-363) was Roman Emperor from 361 until his death. Julian was very active in the literary field and was a satirist, among other things. What was extraordinary, however, was his attempt to push back Christianity in the Roman Empire and replace it with an imperial religion that was influenced by Greek, Roman and Eastern beliefs from pre-Christian times. Late antique and medieval Christianity demonised Julian. During the Renaissance, remarkably, he was regarded more positively by both Catholics and Protestants.↩︎
10. Harvey (1884b), 289↩︎
11. Moore (1926)↩︎
12. Nashe (1589)↩︎
13. In the absence of more detailed information, it is probably Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (Pliny the Younger). In his capacity as governor of Bithynia, he wrote a letter to Emperor Trajan around 112 asking how Christians should be treated legally. In doing so, Pliny summarised his view of Christianity: "Nihil aliud inueni quam superstitionem prauam et immodicam." (Plinius. Epistulae. X. 96)↩︎
14. Harvey (1884b), 292↩︎
15. A native speaker explained to me that in principle both readings were possible, but that there was more evidence to suggest that both were still alive.↩︎
16. Moore (1926)↩︎
17. ex. Cyprián Karásek Lvovický: De coniunctionibus magnis insignoribus superiorum planetarum, solis defectibus, et de cometis effectum historica expositione (1564)↩︎
18. Harvey (1884b), 295↩︎
19. Harvey (1884b), 295↩︎
20. Marlowe (1885); Harvey (1885); Moore (1926); Rowse (1966); Stern (1979)↩︎
21. Nicholl (2002)↩︎
22. Meres (1598)^↩︎
23. Nashe (1958). 4, 155↩︎
24. Nicholl (2002), 64↩︎
25. Kuriyama (2002); Honan (2005); Downie (2007)↩︎
26. Nashe (1883/84), 4↩︎
27. Nashe (1883/84), 194↩︎
28. Nashe (1883/84), 196↩︎
29. It could best be called " debate ", the origins of which go far back into Norse and Celtic literature. In the 15th and 16th centuries, it was about performing very obscene insults at a high poetic level. The opponents did not want to express their animosities in this way; on the contrary, they were usually on friendly terms with each other, which is why these crudities were not taken personally. It was a game with language and form.↩︎
30. McPherson (1969)↩︎

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