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Bible Encyclopedias
George Peele
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
or GEORGE PEELE (1558 - c. 1598), English dramatist, was born in London in 1558. His father, who appears to have belonged to a Devonshire family, was clerk of Christ's Hospital, and wrote two treatises on book-keeping. George Peele was educated at Christ's Hospital, and entered Broadgates Hall (Pembroke College), Oxford, in 1571. In 1574 he removed to Christ Church, taking his B.A. degree in 1577, and proceeding M.A. in 1579. In 1579 the governors of Christ's Hospital requested their clerk to "discharge his house of his son, George Peele." It is not necessary to read into this anything more than that the governors insisted on his beginning to earn a livelihood. He went up to London about 1580, but in 1583 when Albertus Alasco (Albert Laski), a Polish nobleman, was entertained at Christ Church, Oxford, Peele was entrusted with the arrangement of two Latin plays by William Gager ( fl. 1580-1619) presented on the occasion. He was also complimented by Dr Gager for an English verse translation of one of the Iphigenias of Euripides. In 1585 he was employed to write the Device of the Pageant borne before Woolston Dixie, and in 1591 he devised the pageant in honour of another lord mayor, Sir William Webbe. This was the Descensus Astraeae (printed in the Harleian Miscellany, 1808), in which Queen Elizabeth is honoured as Astraea. Peele had married as early as 1583 a lady who brought him some property, which he speedily dissipated. Robert Greene, at the end of his Groatsworth of Wit, exhorts Peele to repentance, saying that he has, like himself, "been driven to extreme shifts for a living." The sorry traditions of his reckless life were emphasized by the use of his name in connexion with the apocryphal Merrie conceited Jests of George Peele (printed in 1607). Many of the stories had done service before, but there are personal touches that may be biographical. He died before 1598, for Francis Meres, writing in that year, speaks of his death in his Palladis Tamia. His pastoral comedy of The Araygnement of Paris, presented by the Children of the Chapel Royal before Queen Elizabeth perhaps as early as 1581, was printed anonymously in 1584. Charles Lamb, sending to Vincent Novello a song from this piece of Peele's, said that if it had been less uneven in execution Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess " had been but a second name in this sort of writing." Peele shows considerable art in his flattery. Paris is arraigned before Jupiter for having assigned the apple to Venus. Diana, with whom the final decision rests, gives the apple to none of the competitors but to a nymph called Eliza, whose identity is confirmed by the further they chose for their raids on the Roman Catholic villages. The Roman Catholics in return formed the society of "The Defenders."
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Chisholm, Hugh, General Editor. Entry for 'George Peele'. 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/bri/g/george-peele.html. 1910.
