ABSTRACT
Thomas Lodge began his career in fiction as a protege of Robert Greene. Greene contributed a “To the Gentlemen Reader” epistle to each, and to Rosalynde he added a second epistle in the voice of Euphues. Even early works like Forbonious and Prisceria, Lodge’s first fiction, and Rosalynde, the romance that Greene may have substantially re-written, bear traces of Lodge’s later repudiation of his mentor. Lodge’s life was as dominated by romance topoi as Greene’s. He was the eldest son of Sir Thomas Lodge, a leader of the Grocer’s Guild and Lord Mayor of London. Living and writing in Greene’s shadow, Lodge’s sole commercial triumph was Rosalynde (1590). Greene makes Lodge into a romancer like himself and imagines Rosalynde continuing the project of Forbonius and Prisceria. Robin the demon-student echoes Greene the Master of Arts who eschews sobriety for pleasure. Lodge’s portrait of the prodigal student as devil may have been intended to point Greene back toward moral fictions.
