The Life and Works of Thomas Nashe Quiz

Answer: November, 1567

Thomas Nashe was born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, in November, 1567. His christening is entered in the parish records, but for some unknown reason the clerk wrote only the month and omitted the day. One of eight children, only Thomas and one brother, Israel, survived into adulthood.

Answer: Anglican priest

Nashe's father, William Nashe, was an Anglican priest. The minor members of the clergy were not well provided for in the days of Nashe's youth, and the family probably enjoyed few luxuries. Nashe's mother's will, however, shows her to have been a woman with quite a few possessions, so Thomas probably had what we today would call a middle-class upbringing.

Answer: St. John's College, Cambridge

The first mention of Nashe in the University records is dated October 13, 1582, but he had probably enrolled the previous year. He was a "sizar scholar," and was expected to perform menial chores in exchange for his room and board. The writer Thomas Middleton describes him as "Pierce-pennelesse, exceeding poore Scholler, that hath made cleane shooes in both Universities."
His poverty does not seem to have dampened his spirits; he acquired the reputation of being a wild and dissolute young man, and was frequently in conflict with the University authorities.

Answer: His father's death

William Nashe died in January, 1587, and it is likely that Thomas' family could no longer support his academic career. His mother died two years later. In her will she left him a featherbed, a coverlet, one silver spoon, two napkins, a tablecloth, and half her pewter.

Answer: The Anatomy of Absurdity

These are all works by Nashe, but "The Anatomy of Absurdity," was his earliest, having been registered on September 19, 1588; it was not actually published until 1590. It is not one of his better efforts, but probably brought him a much needed pound or two. London then, as now, was an expensive place to live, and for a poor scholar without a patron, it must have been a struggle to survive. Nashe himself recalled this period when he wrote: "All in vain I sat up late and rose up early, contended with the cold and conversed with scarcity; for all my labors turned to loss, my vulgar Muse was despised & neglected, my pains not regarded or slightly rewarded, and I myself (in prime of my best wit) laid open to poverty." He notes that he "lived a long time without money."

Answer: The University Wits

The University Wits were a diverse lot; they had in common the fact that they were graduates of Oxford or Cambridge, and were prepared to turn out plays, pamphlets, poems or anything else that would keep them in bread and beer. Some, like Marlowe, Greene, and Lyly, were friends of Nashe; others. such as Thomas Lodge, were targets of his sarcastic wit.

Answer: Cuthbert Curryknave

John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury, was very unpopular among England's Puritan faction. In 1588, a Welsh clergyman, John Penry, began writing tracts attacking Whitgift, and the Church of England in general, under the name "Martin Marprelate." These attacks stirred up so much controversy that the government hired several writers - Nashe among them - to compose pamphlets refuting Penry's arguments. "An Almond for a Parrot" demonstrates Nashe's rapier-like wit, and the propensity for personal invective which would get him into so much trouble throughout his life.

A recurring theme in Nashe's writings is his absolute loathing of Puritanism. Nashe seems to have had a rather high opinion of his own talents; in the introduction to the work he warns: "Therefore beware (gentle reader) you catch not the hicket with laughing."

Answer: The Choice of Valentines

"Dido" and "Hero and Leander" are poems by Christopher Marlowe; "Every Man In His Humor" is a play by Ben Jonson. There is evidence that Nashe may have collaborated with Marlowe in writing "Dido"; he certainly worked with Jonson at a later date.

"The Choice of Valentines" is a rather bawdy poem. It is also known as "Nashe's Dildo." It borders on the pornographic, but is also very funny.

Answer: Gabriel Harvey

Gabriel Harvey (1550-1631) was born near Saffron Walden, Cambridge, the son of a ropemaker. He began teaching at Cambridge in 1574, and doubtless knew Nashe from his days as a student there. In his pamphlet, Harvey claimed that Greene had had pawned all of of possessions and had died in a louse-ridden bed, "calling for a penny-pott of Malmsey."

Nashe began by mocking Harvey for slandering a dead man who could not defend himself: "Out upon thee for an arrant dog-killer; strike a man when he is dead?" After a spirited defense of his late friend, Nashe proceeds to mock Harvey's family, appearance, and above all his literary ability: "Why, thy arrant butter-whore, thou cotquean & scrattop of scolds, wilt thou never leave afflicting a dead carcass . . . A wisp, a wisp, a wisp, rip, rip, you kitchen-stuff wrangler." The feud continued with the two trading insults until 1599, when the authorities ordered an end to it. Harvey certainly gets the worst of the exchange; he is shown to to be a snobbish social climber, a hypocrite, and a pretentious buffoon, always fawning on his betters. Nashe's pamphlets, such as "Have With You to Saffron-Walden," contain some of his wittiest and funny writing.

Answer: The Unfortunate Traveller

"The Unfortunate Traveller, or The Life of Jack Wilton," was written sometime in 1593, but not published until the following year. It is set during the reign of of Henry VIII, and details the adventures of Jack Wilton, a young page, who has a series of adventures on the Continent.

It is dedicated to the Earl of Southampton, the same man to whom Shakespeare dedicated the poem, "The Rape of Lucrece." Southampton must not have been impressed; Nashe received no patronage from him, and remained desperately poor.

Answer: Sir George Carey

Sir George Carey was a cousin of Queen Elizabeth and Captain-General of the Isle of Wight. Nashe entered his service sometime in 1593, because he writes that he spent Christmas, 1593 at Carey's residence of Carisbrooke Castle, and remained there "a great while after." Nashe dedicated a pamphlet called "Christ's Tears Over Jerusalem," to Carey's wife, Elizabeth.

It is not certain what function Nashe served in Carey's household; he may have been a tutor to the Carey's children, or he may have been hired to provide entertainment by writing plays or masques. Nashe speaks highly of Carey in several of his works. Carey later became 2nd Baron Hunsdon, and also Lord Chamberlain.

He died in 1603, reportedly of syphilis.

Answer: Love's Labor Lost

Based upon contextual evidence, many scholars believe that the characters Armado and Moth represent Gabriel Harvey and Thomas Nashe. For example, Moth is called "young Juvenal," a nickname given Nashe by many of his peers.

Answer: The Isle of Dogs

Nashe had probably spent some time in prison on numerous occasions; once for a pamphlet titled "Christ's Tears Over Jerusalem," which offended some members of the ruling establishment, and at other times for debt. But it was "The Isle of Dogs" that brought about his first serious brush with the law.

There are no surviving copies of the play, so it cannot be said with certainty what it was about. We know it was a comedy, and that it probably satirized powerful government officials, perhaps even the Queen herself. There is some evidence that suggests it may have been directed at Henry Brooke, Lord Cobham.
What is certain is that the government took prompt action to suppress it. On July 28, 1597, all the theaters in London were closed. Jonson, and two actors, Gabriel Spencer and Robert Shaw, were arrested and a warrant issued for Nashe's arrest as well. Nashe escaped by fleeing London, but his lodgings were searched and his papers seized.

Nashe later claimed that he had written only the introduction and the first act of the play, but this is doubtful.

Answer: His works were ordered to burned

John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury, in his office as chief censor, issued an edict on June 1, 1599, banning a large number of controversial works by various authors. Included in his command was the following: "that all Nashes bookes and Doctor Harveyes bookes be taken wheresoever they maye be founde, and that none of theire bookes bee ever printed hereafter." On June 4, his works were among those publicly burned at Stationers' Hall.

This was the equivalent of a death sentence for Nashe as a writer.

In the future, he would have to write anonymously, if he wrote at all. Ironically, one of Nashe's plays, "Summer's Last Will and Testament," had been dedicated to Whitgift.

Answer: Date of death unknown

The date, place and cause of Nashe's death are all unknown. He probably died sometime in 1601, because a Latin elegy to him by Charles Fitzgeffrey is included in that author's book, "Affaniae," published in 1601, and his death is mentioned in a play performed at Christmas, 1601 by students at Cambridge, called "The Return From Parnassus." It includes this tribute to Nashe:

"His stile was wittie, though it had some gall,
Some thing he might have mended, so may all,
Yet this I say, that for a mother witt,
Fewer men have ever seen the like of it."

If you would like to learn more about Thomas Nashe, I highly recommend the excellent biography, "A Cup of News," by Charles Nicholl.