George Peele

Portrait of a Gentleman, possibly George Peele (1556-1596). Courtesy Selling Antiques.

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George Peele (baptized 25 July 1556 - buried 9 November 1596), was an English poet and dramatist.

Life

Overview

Peele, son of a salter in London, was educated at Christ's Hospital and Oxford, where he had a reputation as a poet. Coming back to London about 1581 he led a dissipated life. He appears to have been a player as well as a playwright, and to have come into possession of some land through his wife. His works are numerous and consist of plays, pageants, and miscellaneous verse. His best plays are The Arraignment of Paris (1584) and The Battle of Alcazar (1594); and among his poems, Polyhymnia (1590), and The Honour of the Garter (1593). Other works are Old Wives' Tale (1595), and David and Fair Bethsabe (1599). Peele wrote in melodious and flowing blank verse, with abundance of fancy and brilliant imagery, but his dramas are weak in construction, and he is often bombastic and extravagant.

Family

Peele belonged to a family supposed to have been of Devonshire origin. His father, James Peele, was a citizen and salter of London, and for many years held the office of clerk of Christ's Hospital (cf. State Papers, Dom. Eliz. Addenda, xxiii. 28). At the same time he taught and wrote on book-keeping, and it is claimed for him that he was the 1st to introduce the Italian system into this country. But it is improbable that he had a knowledge of Italian.

James Peele's earliest publication was The maner and fourme how to kepe a perfecte reconyng, after the order of the moste worthie and notable accompte, of Debitour and Creditour, set Foorthe in certain tables, with a declaracion thereunto belongyng, verie easie to be learned, and also profitable not onely vnto suche that trade in the facte of Marchaundise, but also vnto any other estate, that will learned the same, London, 1553, dedicated to Sir William Denzell, knt., treasurer of the queen's majesty's wards, and governor of the company of Merchant Adventurers. 16 years later Peele republished the work, enlarged 4-fold, as The Pathewaye to perfectnes in th' accomptes of Debitour and Creditour: in manner of a Dialogue, very pleasaunte and proffitable for Marchauntes and all other that minde to frequente the same: once agayne set forth and very much enlarged, London, 16 Aug. 1569. Both editions are in the British Museum.

Youth and education

George was a "free scholar" at Christ's Hospital from 1565 to 1570 (Bullen, pp. xiii–xiv). In March 1571 he entered at Broadgates Hall (now Pembroke College, Oxford); but from 1574 to 1579 he was a member of Christ Church, where he earned a B.A. in 1577 and an M.A. in 1579.

Wood states that at the university Peele was esteemed a noted poet, and it is supposed that while at Oxford he wrote his Tale of Troy, which he described in the 1st impression of 1589 as "an old poem of mine own." During his residence in the university he also translated one of the Euripidean Iphigenias. The performance of this tragedy was celebrated in 2 Latin poems by Dr. William Gager of Christ Church; and in one of these the writer alludes to the social gaieties, together with the academical successes, of Peele's Oxford career.

Career

Peele appears to have continued the gaieties after leaving Oxford for London; for on 19 September 1579 the governors of Christ's Hospital, who had contributed 5l. to his B.A. fees, bound over his father to "discharge his house" before Michaelmas "of his son George Peele, and all other his household" (including apparently a younger son James) "which have been chargeable to him" (court-book entries, ap. Bullen, p. xv).

Turned out of the precincts of the hospital, Peele seems to have embarked on a career of work and dissipation. He returned to Oxford in June 1583 to aid in the production of Gager's comedy Rivales and tragedy Dido. He was then married and had acquired some land in his wife's right, but had not otherwise attained respectability.

His earliest known play, The Arraignment of Paris, was, as Fleay shows, acted before 1584, and, in all probability, early in 1581. His earliest pageant bears the date of 1585.

There seems sufficient proof that he was a successful player as well as a playwright. Fleay (English Drama, ii. 154) concludes that Peele left the lord admiral's company of players (Henslowe) and joined the queen's men in 1589 (the document representing him as in that year a sharer in the Blackfriars Theatre is discredited). In the Jests he is said to have announced a theatrical performance at Bristol; but he may not have meant to take part in it himself. In a supplementary Jest he and John Singer, a well-known actor, are said to have "ofttimes" played at Cambridge; but this anecdote dates from the time of Charles I.

He doubtless added to his income by addressing for payment literary tributes to private patrons. Verses of his in praise of Thomas Watson appeared in 1582 with that poet's Ekatompathia (Bullen, ii. 359). The Earl of Northumberland, the "Mæcenas" of the Honour of the Garter, seems to have presented him with a fee of 3l.

Peele's wanton mode of life involved him in endless anxieties. He may indeed be held innocent of part, or possibly of the whole, of the discreditable escapades detailed in the Merry conceited Jests of George Peele, sometime a Student in Oxford, which was entered in the Stationers' Registers in 1605, and of which the earliest known edition appeared in 1607, 9 years or more after his death. The only extant copy is in the library of Mr. W. Christie-Miller of Britwell Court, Buckinghamshire. Later editions were issued about 1620, and in 1627, 1657, and 1671. Like other publications of the sort, this is largely a réchauffé of earlier collections of facetiæ (the edition of 1627 is reprinted by Dyce, and by Mr. Bullen, vol. ii.). But suspiciously personal touches occur occasionally. He states that he resided on the Bankside, and describes his voice as "more woman than man;" and mention is made of his wife and of a 10-year-old daughter.

One of ‘Peele's Jests was dramatised in the comedy of the Puritan; or, The widow of Watling Street,’ 1607, ludicrously misattributed to Shakespeare; the hero, George Pyeboard, is supposed to be Peele (‘peel’ = a baker's board for shoving pies in and out of the oven). Collier and Fleay conjecture that Peele was also portrayed as the "humorous George" of the prologue to Wily Beguiled (1st known to have been printed in 1606, but probably of much earlier date in its original version).

Robert Greene appealed at the close of his Groatsworth of Wit to Peele as 1 driven, like the writer himself, "to extreme shifts" to avoid a life of vice. In Dekker's tract, A Knight's Conjuring, 1607, he is represented as a boon companion of Marlowe and Greene. Peele paid a beautiful tribute to the dead Marlowe in the Honour of the Garter (ll. 60–3). Nashe eulogised Peele as "the chief supporter of pleasance now living, the Atlas of poetry, and primus verborum artifex" (‘Address’ prefixed to Greene's Menaphon, 1587).

Peele took no prominent part in the many controversies in which his associates were engaged; although in the Old Wives' Tale he cites in ridicule a hexameter from the poem of Gabriel Harvey, which was satirised by Nashe in the course of his fierce contest with Harvey.

In May 1591, when Queen Elizabeth visited Lord Burghley's seat of Theobalds, Peele was employed to compose certain speeches addressed to the queen which deftly excused the absence of the master of the house. In January 1596 he sent his Tale of Troy to the great lord treasurer through a "simple messenger," "his eldest daughter, necessity's servant."

His lyrics were popular in literary circles, and were included in the chief anthologies of the day: The Phœnix Nest, 1593; Englands Helicon and Englands Parnassus, 1600; Belvidera; or The garden of the muses, 1610).

The date of Peele's death is unknown. In 1598 Francis Meres, in his Palladis Tamia: Wit's treasury, mentions him as having died of a loathsome disease. Samuel Rowlands, in his lines on The Letting of Humour's Blood in the Head-vein, 1600, on the virtues of charnico, seems to allude to his death, as well as to the deaths of Greene and Marlowe (see Warton, Hist. of English Poetry, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, 1871, iv. 418. A forged letter, dated 1600, from Peele to Marlowe, cited by Dyce, p. 327 n., was 1st printed in Berkenhout, Biogr. Lit. p. 404).

Writing

Peele is one of the most prominent figures among those of Shakespeare's "predecessors" and earlier contemporaries. In his manipulation of his own language for metrical purposes he was skilful, and now and then wonderfully successful. His blank verse, usually fluent though monotonous, rises here and there to grandeur and force; and scattered through his plays and pastorals are more than one lyric of imperishable charm.

His text is so largely corrupt as to make generalisations unsafe, but he seems hardly to have mastered the management of rhyme. In constructive power as a dramatist he was, as far as the plays to be with certainty ascribed to him are concerned, consistently deficient; and he "exercised far less influence over the development of our drama than either Lyly or Greene, not to mention Marlowe" (Symonds, Shakspere's Predecessors, p. 564).

Yet his fancy was quick and versatile, and his dramatic writings derived their effectiveness, not only from the varied brilliancy of his imagery, but also from the occasional strength of his feeling, which readily reflected the popular and patriotic sentiment of his age (see The Battle of Alcazar, A Farewell, &c.). The growth of his powers had been stimulated by a university training, and his works abound in classical allusions; but he was not often markedly felicitous in his employment of them. He had, for better or worse, imbibed something, too, of the spirit of his Italian sources. His method of literary workmanship was assimilative, and he subsequently served at times the purposes of the greatest of literary assimilators, Milton.

Peele's works fall under the 3 divisions of (i) plays, (ii) pageants, and (iii) ‘gratulatory’ and miscellaneous verse.

Plays

1. The Arraignment of Paris was presented to the queen by the chapel children, probably in 1581 (see Fleay, English Drama, i. 152), and certainly before 1584, when it was anonymously printed. Copies are in the British Museum and in the Capell collection at Trinity College, Cambridge. Peele's authorship is attested by Nash. The idea of this piece — the trial by Diana, with whom Queen Elizabeth is easily identified, of Paris for error of judgment in giving the apple to Venus — was apparently original, though possibly the nucleus may be traceable to Gascoigne (see F.E. Schelling in Modern Language Notes, Baltimore, April 1893). Malone conjectures that Edmund Spenser is the Colin of this play, and that Spenser retorted upon Peele under the name of Palin in Colin Clout's Come Home Again (ll. 392–3). Peele's diction is fearlessly affected, and the versification various and versatile. There is little blank verse, as compared with the rhymed lines. Some of the lyrics became popular, and one of them ("Fair and Fair," &c.) is singled out for eulogy by Charles Lamb.

2. The Famous Chronicle of King Edward I, surnamed Edward Longshanks, &c., &c., printed 1593, may have been acted 2 or 3 years earlier (the arguments of Fleay, English Drama, ii. 157, are not strong). This production — a chronicle history — marks a phase of the transition from the historical morality of the type of Bale's Kynge Johan to the national historical tragedy of Shakespeare and Marlowe. Peele's play, although in its spirited opening and elsewhere it is dramatically effective and displays its author's classical and Italian reading, possesses little poetical merit. Its farcical scenes are calculated to make the judicious grieve; and its more serious portion, mostly adapted from Holinshed, recklessly embodies lying scandal about the good Queen Eleanor, "assimilated" by Peele from a ballad (for which see Dyce, pp. 373–4) launched in the later Tudor spirit against a princess of Castilian birth. Copies of the 1st edition are in the British Museum and the Bodleian Library. The 2nd edition was issued in 1599, and is also to be found in the British Museum.

3. The Battle of Alcazar, printed in 1594, was in all probability acted before the spring of 1589 (cf. Peele, Farewell, &c.) It was assigned to Peele in Englands Parnassus (1600), and the internal evidence is conclusive (see Dyce and Læmmerhirt). The Battle of Alcazar is the play mentioned by Henslowe as Muly Mulocco, the name of one of its characters, on 29 February 1592, and later (Diary, ed. Collier, p. 21, et al.). The conduct of its action is vigorous, and it has flights of exuberantly virile rhetoric which fit it for comparison with Marlowe's Tamberlaine. But the play is more clumsily constructed. A presenter introduces each act, and there is a series of dumb-shows (cf. Dr. Brinsley Nicholson's note, ap. Bullen, i. 211 sqq.). Copies of this, the least rare of Peele's dramatic works, are in the British Museum, and at Britwell, Rowfant, and elsewhere.

4. The Old Wives' Tale, printed in 1595, is held by Fleay (English Drama, ii. 154–5) to have been acted 5 years earlier, by way of a retort to Gabriel Harvey's attack upon Lyly. The latter, dated 5 November 1589, was not published till 1593. The theory appears to rest on the very slender fact that an hexameter is quoted in the play from Harvey's "Encomium Lauri" in his Three Proper and Familiar Letters (1580). This romantic interlude, or farce, is pervaded, more particularly in its induction, by an irresistible flood of high spirits, which, on the stage as elsewhere, covers a multitude of nonsense. The plot was indebted to Ariosto, as well as probably directly to Apuleius, and other classical sources. In its turn it conveyed suggestions to Milton (whose acquaintance with Peele's writings probably also included Edward I) when transfusing the materials for Comus. The only copies known are in the British Museum and at Bridgwater House.

5.The Love of King David and Fair Bethsabe; with the Tragedy of Absalon, was not printed till 1599. Copies are in the British Museum, at Britwell and in the Huth collection. The date of its composition remains uncertain, although Fleay (English Drama, ii. 153–4) considers it an allegory of the state of affairs which led to the execution of Mary Queen of Scots in 1587. It appears to have been reproduced in 1602 (Henslowe, Diary, 241; cf. Fleay, u.s.) In construction it is of the chronicle history type. Its original text is the Old Testament, to which Peele is supposed to have resorted in order to disarm the existing prejudices against stage-plays. Possibly he made use of some unknown mystery or early religious play. The diction is generally pleasing, and the verse, if rather monotonous, is fluent, and rises to impressiveness in a few florid passages. The piece lacks dramatic characterisation and effect.

Besides the above, Peele wrote: 6. The Hunting of Cupid, a lost pastoral drama licensed 26 July 1591 (see Arber, Stationers' Registers, ii. 278), which, from a manuscript statement by Drummond of Hawthornden, seen by Dyce, appears to have been printed before 1607 (see the fragments chiefly lyrical, put together by Dyce, pp. 603–4).

He has further been credited on inadequate evidence with the authorship of Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes, 1599. The external evidence — a manuscript note in a very old hand on the title-page of a copy of this play — is trifling; the list of parallel phrases (rather than parallel passages) in plays certainly by Peele compiled by Læmmerhirt is unconvincing; and, on the whole, Fleay and Bullen may be followed in their refusal to burden Peele's reputation with the authorship. In Wily Beguiled, 1st known to have been printed in 1606, he may possibly have had a hand.

Pageeants

1. The Device of the Pageant borne before Woolston Dixie, Mayor [of London], 29 October 1585; printed in 1585. The only copy known is in the Bodleian Library. This is the first lord mayor's pageant of which a printed text is known to exist (see Fairholt, Lord Mayors' Pageants, Percy Society's publ. 1843, pt. i. pp. 24–6).

2. Descensus Astrææ, written for the mayoral solemnity of Sir William Webbe, 29 Oct. 1591. While Astræa is the queen, Superstition appears as a friar, and Ignorance as a monk (ib. pp. 27–9). The only copy known is in the Guildhall Library.

3. Speeches to Queen Elizabeth at Theobalds, composed for an entertainment devised for the queen's visit in 1591 to Lord Burghley's country seat. Of the three ‘Speeches,’ the 1st was in part printed by Collier in his History of English Dramatic Poetry, 1831 (see new edit. 1879, i. 275–6); the 2nd and 3rd afterwards came into his hands, and were printed by Dyce, and afterwards by Bullen.

Miscellaneous

1. A Farewell, &c., to Sir John Norris and Sir Francis Drake, Knights, and all their brave and resolute Followers, 1589, in spirited blank verse. The only copies known are in the British Museum and at Britwell.

2. The Beginnings, Accidents, and End of the Fall of Troy. This piece was first published with the Farewell in 1589. An edition, printed apparently from a revised copy, appeared in 1604 as a thumb-book, measuring 11/4 inch by 1 inch, and having 2 lines only on a page. A copy, believed to be unique, was sold by Sotheby & Co. in 1884. The reference in this short and commonplace epical version, in rhymed couplets, of the Trojan story to the episode of Troilus and Cressida may conceivably have suggested to Shakespeare a full dramatic treatment of the theme (1609).

3. An Eclogue Gratulatory, entitled: “To the Right Honourable and Renowned Shepherd of Albion's Arcadia, Robert, Earl of Essex, for his Welcome into England from Portugal,” 1589; a "pastoral" in rhymed quatrains — as full of archaisms as is the Shepherds' Calendar. The only copy known is now in the Bodleian Library.

4. Polyhymnia; describing the immediate Triumph at Tilt before Her Majesty on the 17th of November last past, &c.; with Sir Henry Lea's Resignation of Honour at Tilt to Her Majesty, and received by the Right Hon. the Earl of Cumberland, 1590, in flowing blank verse. An account of the proceedings celebrated is in Segar's ‘Honour, Military and Civil,’ 1602.

5. The Honour of the Garter, displayed in a Poem Gratulatory, entitled: “To the worthy and renowned Earl of Northumberland,” 1593. This, the most elaborate of Peele's non-dramatic productions, was written (in blank verse) to commemorate the installation as knights of the Garter of several noblemen and gentlemen, including Henry Percy, 9th earl of Northumberland. The poem introduces the well-known legend as to the foundation of the order. Copies are in the British Museum, Bodleian Library, and at Britwell.

6. Anglorum Feriæ, England's Holidays, celebrated the 17th of November last, 1595, was first printed in 1830 from a manuscript now in the British Museum. It celebrates in blank verse the appearance of a noble company at tilt, in honour of the birthday of the queen.

Besides the above, Peele wrote lines to Thomas Watson (1582) and the Praise of Chastity (in The Phœnix Nest, 1593), and has been "credited" with "A Merry Ballet of the Hawthorn-tree," first printed in Ritson's Ancient Songs, 1790, from a manuscript in the Cottonian Library, signed "G. Peele" (in a much more modern hand than that of the ballad: Dyce).

Collected editions of Peele's works were edited in 3 volumes by Alexander Dyce in 1829-1839, and in 2 volumes by A.H. Bullen in 1888.

Critical introduction

by William Minto

Peele was one of the singers before the great Elizabethan sunrise, and his notes contain no anticipatory vibration of the burst of song that was to follow him. His University friends, even after Marlowe had made his voice heard, spoke of him as the Atlas of poetry, inferior to none, and in some respects superior to all; but this partial verdict can now be recorded only as an example of how contemporary criticism is sometimes mistaken. In reading his plays now one is more astonished that Greene and Nash should have considered him worthy to be named in the same breath with Marlowe, than that the theatrical managers of the time, so much to their indignation, should have rejected his plays in favour of the productions of non-academic workmen.

Peele’s blank verse, which was so much admired by his academic contemporaries, gives us a fair idea of the environment out of which Marlowe emerged, and increases our admiration of that mighty genius. It deserves the praise of "smoothness" which it received from Campbell; it is graceful and elegant, but it has neither sinew nor majesty. I have quoted what seems to me to be the most favourable example of his use of this instrument, an address prefixed to one of his plays, The Tale of Troy, published in 1599, two years after the production of Tamburlaine. The inspiration of the subject seems to have contributed a fire and a freedom of movement which is generally lacking in Peele’s blank verse. In using this form at all, Peele essayed an instrument which was beyond his powers and unsuited to his bent of feeling.

His was an adroit, subtle, versatile mind, without massiveness or passionate intensity, and he is seen at his best in the expression of graceful and humorous fancies. He was not however a follower of Marlowe in the application of blank verse to tragic purposes. In the Arraignment of Paris, the prologue spoken by Ate is in that metre, and it is also adopted by Paris in his speech before the council of the Gods, and by Diana in her description of the nymph Eliza, a ‘figure’ of Queen Elizabeth. This seems to show that among the University poets, from whose circle Marlowe burst to reform the common stage, blank verse was considered the appropriate instrument for tragic and stately speeches. But it was not apparently till after the production of Tamburlaine that Peele wrote whole plays in blank verse. David and Bethsabe is the best of these, and is full of happy touches in the tender scenes, but the firmness of a masterly hand is wanting. The verse seldom moves far without having recourse to the crutch of weak and superfluous epithets. In the Battle of Alcazar Peele tried, perhaps at the instigation of his hard taskmasters the theatrical managers, to make up by sound and fury for his want of natural strength in the expression of passion, and thereby furnished Shakespeare with the model for some of the best-known extravagances of Pistol.

Peele has also left us in Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes an example of the jigging measure of fourteen syllables, from which Marlowe aspired to redeem the stage.

It cannot be said that Peele helped forward the great literary movement of his time; he is perhaps the best illustration of the utmost that could be done by a cultured man of facile talent and poetic temperament before the advent of the great Elizabethans.

Recognition

One of the 8 boarding houses at the Horsham campus is now named Peele after George Peele, and as a commemoration to the work of the Peele family with the ancient foundation of the Christs Hospital school.

His poems "Fair and Fair" and "A Farewell to Arms" were included in the Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900.

In popular culture

Peele's sonnet, "A Farewell to Arms", which concludes his Polyhymnia, was quoted by Thackeray in the 76th chapter of The Newcomes, and served as the title of Ernest Hemingway's novel.

Publications

Poetry

• A Farewell. Entituled To the Famous and Fortunate Generalls of Our English Forces: Sir J. Norris & Syr F. Drake: Whereunto is annexed a tale of Troy. London: Printed by J. Charlewood, sold by W. Wright, 1589.
• An Eglogue, Gratulatorie, Entituled: To the Honorable Shepheard of Albions Arcadia: Robert Earle of Essex. London: Printed by J. Windet for R. Jones, 1589.
• Polyhymnia: Describing the Honourable Triumph at Tylt. London: Printed by R. Jones, 1590.
• The Honour of the Garter. Displaied in a Poeme Gratulatorie: Entitled, To the Earle of Northumberland. Created Knight of That Order, and Installd Anno Regni Elizabethæ. 35. die Iunij 26. London: Printed by the Widdowe Charlewood for F. Busbie, 1593.

Plays

• The Araynement of Paris: A pastorall. London: Printed by H. Marsh, 1584.
• The Device of the Pageant Borne before Wolstan Dixi Lord Maior of London. London: Printed by E. Allde, 1585.
• Descensus Astrææ. The Device of a Pageant Borne before M. William Web, Lord Maior of London, 1591. London: Printed by T. Scarlet for W. Wright, 1591.
• The Famous Chronicle of King Edward the First. London: Printed by A. Jeffes, sold by W. Barley, 1593.
• The Battell of Alcazar . London: Printed by E. Allde for R. Bankworth, 1594.
• The Old Wiues Tale. A Pleasant conceited comedie. London: Printed by J. Danter, sold by R. Hancocke & J. Hardie, 1595;
  • (edited by Patricia Binnie). Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press / Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980. w
• The Love of King Dauid and Fair Bethsabe: with The tragedie of Absalon. London: Adam Islip, 1599. w

Non-fiction

• Merrie conceited iests of George Peele, gentleman, sometimes student in Oxford. London: Henry Bell, 1620; London: S.W. Singer / R. Triphook, 1809.

Anthologized

• The Phoenix Nest (edited by R.S.). London: Printed by J. Jackson, 1593 (includes poems by Peele).
• Englands Parnassus (edited by Robert Allott). London: Printed for N. Ling, C. Burby & T. Hayes, 1600 (includes poems by Peele).
• Englands Helicon. London: Printed by J. Roberts for J. Flasket, 1600 (includes poems by Peele).

Collected editions

• The Works of George Peele (edited by Alexander Dyce). London: W. Pickering, 1828.
• Plays and Poems (introduction by Henry Morley). London & New York: Routledge, 1887.
• The Works of George Peele (edited by A.H. Bullen). London: J.C. Nimmo, 1888.
• The Life and Works of George Peele (general editor Charles Tyler Prouty). (3 volumes), New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1952-1970. w
  • nondramatic works are in Volume 1: The Life and Minor Works (edited by David H. Horne), 1952.
• George Peele (edited by Sally Purcell). Manchester, UK: Carcanet, 1968.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat & the Poetry Foundation.

Play productions

• Iphigenia (Peele's translation of Euripides' play), Christ Church, Oxford, circa 1579.
• Entertainment for Count Palatine, Christ Church, Oxford, May 1583.
• The Arraignment of Paris, London, at Court, 1584.
• The Pageant before Woolstone Dixie, streets of London, 29 October 1585.
• The Pageant for Martin Calthrop, streets of London, 29 October 1588.
• The Battle of Alcazar, London, The Theatre, circa 1590.
• Edward I, London, The Theatre or Curtain Theater, circa 1590-1592.
• Descensus Astrææ, streets of London, 29 October 1591.
• The Old Wifes Tale, London, unknown theater, circa 1591-1594.
• David and Bethsabe, London, unknown theater, by 1594.

What Thing Is Love, by George Peele

Except where noted, information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.

Poems by George Peele

"Bathsheba's Song," by George Peele

1. A Farewell to Arms

See also

• List of British poets
• List of English-language playwrights

References

• Logan, Terence P.& Denzell S. Smith, The Predecessors of Shakespeare: A survey and bibliography of recent studies in English Renaissance drama. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1973.
•  Ward, Adolphus William (1895) "Peele, George" in Lee, Sidney Dictionary of National Biography 44 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 225-229 . Wikisource, Web, Feb. 19, 2018.

External links

Poems

• George Peele 1556-1596 at the Poetry Foundation
• A Farewell to Sir John Norris and Sir Francis Drake" in The English Poets: An anthology: "
• George Peele in the Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900: "Fair and Fair", "A Farewell to Arms"
• Peele, George (1556-1596) at Representative Poetry Online
• George Peele (1557 ca.-1596) info & 3 poems at English Poetry, 1579-1830
• George Peele at PoemHunter (9 poems)
• George Peele at Poetry Nook (138 poems)

Books

• George Peele at Amazon.com
• Works by or about George Peele in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

About

• George Peele in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• George Peele at NNDB.
• George Peele at Encyclopedia.com.
• George Peele: A biographical sketch at TheatreHistory.com.
• George Peele Life and Times at Internet Shakespeare Editions
• Peele in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
• George Peele (1558-1598) at Luminarium

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen & Sidney Lee). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: Peele, George