Expert: Irulan Serena - 5/12/2006

Question
what elizabethan writer called shakespeare an "upstart crow"?

Answer
Hello Ebbi,

That was Rober Greene: -

"  Yes trust them not: for there is an vpstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and beeing an absolute Iohannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey  "

- This written by Greene in his Greene's Groatsworth of Wit,
bought with a million of Repentaunce -

Greene's literary attack was due to jealousy and envy, although some scholars believe that Greene was accusing Shakespeare of plegiarism for revising the work of other authros.


Iru