ABSTRACT
Robert Greene has had the misfortune to be regarded primarily as one of Shakespeare's predecessors and as the author of the attack on him in A Groatsworth of Wit Bought with a Million of Repentance (1592). This is unjust to Greene in two ways: first because his best work was all nondramatic, and secondly because critics have praised his plays for qualities which they do not possess. It may be worthwhile, therefore, to attempt a reassessment of his dramatic work. The divergences between the quarto of Orlando Furioso and the Alleyn manuscript of Orlando's part are considerable enough to show that it would be unfair to judge Greene's intentions by the extant text; but, although some of the verse is not without eloquence, the characterization is still crude. Dorothea may, as Robertson suggests, have been named after Greene's wife; and his deathbed letter expresses hope of the forgiveness which the heroes of his plays and novels invariably received.
