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The Second and Last Part of Conny-Catching
Robert Greene (also wrote as R. G.) (1558-1592) was an English author and well-known personality. He became perhaps the first professional author in England, publishing autobiography, plays, romances, and in other genres while capitalizing on a scandalous reputation. By 1583 Greene had begun his literary career with the publication of a long romance, Mamillia. He continued to produce romances written in a highly wrought style, reaching his highest level in Pandosto (1588) and Menaphon (1589). Short poems and songs incorporated in some of the romances gave him high rank as a lyrical poet. By rapid production of such works Greene became one of the first authors in England to support himself with his pen. In his notorious Coney-Catching pamphlets, Greene fashioned himself into a well-known public figure. In addition to prose romances, he composed numerous moral dialoguess, and even some scientific writings. Amongst his other works are A Notable Discovery of Coosnage (1591), Greene s Groats-Worth of Wit (1592), The Second and Last Part of Conny-Catching (1592), The Thirde and Last Part of Conny-Catching (1592) and The Honourable Historie of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (1594).
48 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1592
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February 16, 2024
I love reading this, but in the past I've had moments where I've wondered if to some degree if my love for the language of the day needs to be acknowledged before my love for Greene's spin on it. There's a silly thing about reading the "Elizabethans" nowadays. Any writer who didn't completely shatter all expectations of their time and culture is neglected. I'm not talking at the level of Spencer's The Fairie Queene, but anything less than that level, let's say, is seen as a crank's hobby.
The truth is, Greene reads really well, and has a voice that speaks plainly but forcibly, and is a strong contender in his scene, if it just weren't for him being a contemporary of angels who tore apart heaven like feathers out of a screaming pillowcase; Greene is crude but urgently and sympathetically crude, and by "crude I don't mean offensive but plain-speaking, funny, the voice of someone who has drunk plenty and fought for himself in defense and probably also in undeserving offense. The whole notion of Elizabethan prose & poetry as "flowery" is a bit insulting to the poets and pamphleteers, dramatists and dilettantes who frequented London bars and cursed over their beer and threw rocks through windows and went around the filthy city streets laughing & singing.
I want to suggest a 16th century Karl Kraus but, no, that's bullshit. The truth is that Greene never suggests the possibility of pull & slinging as nearly a beautiful or finely knotted line as Marlowe or yes, Shakespeare, but that's such a ridiculous standard to hold him against without enjoying him for his own plain-speaking prose! And make no mistake, any reason to read Greene is in his prose only; to me his poetry is embarrassing. --It's no wonder he spent so many lines denigrating his peers.
This is a very entertaining piece. In this pamphlet Greene lays out his subject in its action, clearly delineating each cony-catcher's role, and presents live the con as it unfolds from the beginning. The voices are convincing on their own and could be presented as a short drama without the guide of the accompanying prose. You know who is predator and who is peasant.
The cons here are really simple and seem like the sort of thing children would fall for, and that is because peasants traveling through cities had never encountered strangers, at least not outside the context of their own home or being guest in another, for example visiting the farm of a cousin's cousin's friend, -- but that's an extreme example because how much traveling back then did a farmer do? What's depicted here is con men preying on country rubes as well as spoiled nobles, both whom for different reasons were utterly ignorant of their vulnerability.
The truth is, Greene reads really well, and has a voice that speaks plainly but forcibly, and is a strong contender in his scene, if it just weren't for him being a contemporary of angels who tore apart heaven like feathers out of a screaming pillowcase; Greene is crude but urgently and sympathetically crude, and by "crude I don't mean offensive but plain-speaking, funny, the voice of someone who has drunk plenty and fought for himself in defense and probably also in undeserving offense. The whole notion of Elizabethan prose & poetry as "flowery" is a bit insulting to the poets and pamphleteers, dramatists and dilettantes who frequented London bars and cursed over their beer and threw rocks through windows and went around the filthy city streets laughing & singing.
I want to suggest a 16th century Karl Kraus but, no, that's bullshit. The truth is that Greene never suggests the possibility of pull & slinging as nearly a beautiful or finely knotted line as Marlowe or yes, Shakespeare, but that's such a ridiculous standard to hold him against without enjoying him for his own plain-speaking prose! And make no mistake, any reason to read Greene is in his prose only; to me his poetry is embarrassing. --It's no wonder he spent so many lines denigrating his peers.
This is a very entertaining piece. In this pamphlet Greene lays out his subject in its action, clearly delineating each cony-catcher's role, and presents live the con as it unfolds from the beginning. The voices are convincing on their own and could be presented as a short drama without the guide of the accompanying prose. You know who is predator and who is peasant.
The cons here are really simple and seem like the sort of thing children would fall for, and that is because peasants traveling through cities had never encountered strangers, at least not outside the context of their own home or being guest in another, for example visiting the farm of a cousin's cousin's friend, -- but that's an extreme example because how much traveling back then did a farmer do? What's depicted here is con men preying on country rubes as well as spoiled nobles, both whom for different reasons were utterly ignorant of their vulnerability.
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