Greene's dramatic genius has nothing in it of the intensity of Marlowe's
tragic muse; nor perhaps does he ever equal Peele at his best. On the
other hand, his dramatic poetry is occasionally animated with the breezy
freshness which no artifice can simulate. He had considerable
constructive skill, but he has created no character of commanding
power--unless Ateukin be excepted; but his personages are living men and
women, and marked out from one another with a vigorous but far from rude
hand. His comic humour is undeniable, and he had the gift of light and
graceful dialogue. His diction is overloaded with classical ornament,
but his versification is easy and fluent, and its cadence is at times
singularly sweet. He creates his best effects by the simplest means; and
he is indisputably one of the most attractive of early English dramatic
authors.
Greene's dramatic works and poems were edited by Alexander Dyce in
1831 with a life of the author. This edition was reissued in one
volume in 1858. His complete works were edited for the Huth Library by
A. B. Grosart. This issue (1881-1886) contains a translation of
Nicholas Storojhenko's monograph on Greene (Moscow, 1878). Greene's
plays and poems were edited with introductions and notes by J. Churton
Collins in 2 vols. (Oxford, 1905); the general introduction to this
edition has superseded previous accounts of Greene and his dramatic
and lyrical writings. An account of his pamphlets is to be found in J.
J. Jusserand's _English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare_ (Eng.
trans., 1890). See also W. Bernhardi, _Robert Greenes Leben und
Schriften_ (1874); F. M. Bodenstedt, in _Shakespeare's Zeitgenossen
und ihre Werke_ (1858); and an introduction by A. W. Ward to _Friar
Bacon and Friar Bungay_ (Oxford, 1886, 4th ed., 1901). (A. W. W.)
GREENFIELD, a township and the county-seat of Franklin county, in N.E.
Massachusetts, U.S.A., including an area of 20 sq. m. of meadow and hill
country, watered by the Green and Deerfield rivers and various small
tributaries. Pop. (1890) 5252, (1900) 7927, of whom 1431 were
foreign-born; (1910 census) 10,427. The principal village, of the same
name as the township, is situated on the N. bank of the Deerfield river,
and on the Boston & Maine railway and the Connecticut Valley street
railway (electric). Among Greenfield's manufactures are cutlery,
machinery, and taps and dies. Greenfield, originally part of Deerfield,
was settled about 1682, was established as a "district" in 1753, and on
the 23rd of August 1775 was, by a general Act, separated from Deerfield
and incorporated as a separate township, although it had assumed full
township rights in 1774 by sending delegates to the Provincial Congress.
In 1793 part of it was taken to form the township of Gill; in 1838 part
of it was annexed to Bernardston; and in 1896 it annexed a part of
Deerfield. It was much disaffected at the time of Shays's Rebellion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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