Who was one of Shakespeare's enemies?

Answer 1

We have no record of anyone who declared himself to be Shakespeare's enemy. Robert Greene wrote some snarky remarks about him in 1592, but he was a sick and disappointed man and died soon after. Other than that, nobody seems to have disliked him.

In this respect he was quite unlike Ben Jonson, who had a habit of ruffling feathers, got involved in a war of dramatists, wrote a play that got most of the production team thrown in jail, and killed a man in a duel. For all of his prickliness, though, he and Shakespeare were apparently good friends.

Answer 2

Shakespeare's enemies were other writers trying to earn money. Robert Greene, one of the first men to write for the stage, was also an enemy. He once referred to Shakespeare as an "upstart crow with the heart of a tiger," or in other words, vain and selfish, yet ugly and soulless.

Answer 3

No. The word rivals suggests that two people are both striving for an honour or reward which only one can get. Usually this means a long-term struggle. For example, if two men are rivals for a woman's hand, one will marry her and the other will not. If two students are rivals for recognition as top student, one will be recognized as such, the other will not. If two teams are rivals, one will be champion and the other will not.

Shakespeare was never in this kind of a competition. As an actor, he was one of many actors in his company, all of whom were important to its operation. As a playwright, there was a demand for plays far greater than could be satisfied by the output of just one writer. The playing companies, including the Lord Chamberlain's Men, put on new plays by a number of different playwrights. In the case of The Chamberlain's Men, they performed plays by Jonson and Middleton and later by Fletcher and Webster as well as by Shakespeare. That did not make these playwrights rivals of Shakespeare; on the contrary, they were friends and frequently worked together to write plays.

Marlowe is often cited as a rival to Shakespeare. But there was never any competition of any kind between them. In fact, Marlowe died when Shakespeare's career had barely started. Shakespeare greatly admired Marlowe's work.

The only real rivalry in the theatrical world of the day was not between individuals, but between companies. The three great theatrical companies of the time, the Admiral's, the Lord Chamberlain's and Worcester's, were indeed in a rivalry since the company which was thought best would make the most money. A number of factors went into this business rivalry: the scripts the company owned, the actors they had on hand, and the quality of the venues they used, were most significant.

Answer 4

Although Greene seems to have resented Shakespeare's audacity in trying to write plays without a university education, he seems to be alone among the other university-educated playwrights of his time including Nashe, Poole, and Marlowe to complain about it. On the contrary, the evidence shows that Elizabethan playwrights formed a closely-knit and friendly community, who frequently collaborated and wrote plays together. Shakespeare is thought to have been mentored by George Poole, one of the generation of "university wits" that included Greene. Shakespeare may have helped with Poole's plays such as Edward I while Poole helped Shakespeare with his earliest plays. We know that at the end of his career he collaborated with John Fletcher, a younger playwright. He was friends with the playwright Ben Jonson who praised him in the posthumous edition of Shakespeare's complete dramatic works, and there is a story that Shakespeare and Jonson were out drinking together just before Shakespeare died. Basically, although the playwriting business in Shakespeare's day was certainly competitive, that did not make the competitors enemies.Just so that it is clear, this is what Robert Greene said in his 1592 pamphlet Greene's Groatsworth of Wit about Shakespeare: "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 being an absolute Iohannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a country". The "upstart crow" is Shakespeare, who has, Greene says, tried to cover his less-educated origins with borrowed devices from the university men. The use of the word "crow" may also refer to Shakespeare's dark hair and complexion. The line "Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde" is a shout out to Shakespeare's line "O, woman's heart wrapped in a tiger's hide" from Henry VI Part 2. A Johannes factotum is someone who does everything, and Greene resents that Shakespeare is an actor as well as a writer. Finally Greene suggests that it is only in his own opinion ("conceit") is Shakespeare a successful writer who can shake the scene with applause, and the "Shake-scene" is of course a pun on Shakespeare's name. Then, as now, Greene seems to have been alone in his opinion of Shakespeare.

Answer 5

Shakespeare had no enemies that we know of.

Answer 6

Surprisingly few. Robert Greene, in his Groatsworth of Wit (1592) seemed to sneer at Shakespeare for daring to be a writer without a university education, but that's about it.

Answer 7

Robert Greene