verses of Thomas Watson,
Samuel Daniel, Michael Drayton, Sir Philip Sidney, and Thomas Lodge were
certainly among the rills which fed the mighty river of his poetic and
lyric invention. Kyd and Greene, among rival writers of tragedy, left
more or less definite impression on all Shakespeare's early efforts in
tragedy. It was, however, only to two of his fellow dramatists that his
indebtedness as a writer of either comedy or tragedy was material or
emphatically defined. Superior as Shakespeare's powers were to those of
Marlowe, his coadjutor in 'Henry VI,' his early tragedies often reveal
him in the character of a faithful disciple of that vehement delineator
of tragic passion. Shakespeare's early comedies disclose a like
relationship between him and Lyly.

Lyly's influence in comedy.

Lyly is best known as the author of the affected romance of 'Euphues,'
but between 1580 and 1592 he produced eight trivial and insubstantial
comedies, of which six were written in prose, one was in blank verse, and
one was in rhyme. Much of the dialogue in Shakespeare's comedies, from
'Love's Labour's Lost' to 'Much Ado about Nothing,' consists in thrusting
and parrying fantastic conceits, puns, or antitheses. This is the style
of intercourse in which most of Lyly's characters exclusively indulge.
Three-fourths of Lyly's comedies lightly revolve about topics of
classical or fairy mythology--in the very manner which Shakespeare first
brought to a triumphant issue in his 'Midsummer Night's Dream.'
Shakespeare's treatment of eccentric character like Don Armado in 'Love's
Labour's Lost' and his boy Moth reads like a reminiscence of Lyly's
portrayal of Sir Thopas, a fat vainglorious knight, and his boy Epiton in
the comedy of 'Endymion,' while the watchmen in the same play clearly
adumbrate Shakespeare's Dogberry and Verges. The device of masculine
disguise for love-sick maidens was characteristic of Lyly's method before
Shakespeare ventured on it for the first of many times in 'Two Gentlemen
of Verona,' and the dispersal through Lyly's comedies of songs possessing
every lyrical charm is not the least interesting of the many striking
features which Shakespeare's achievements in comedy seem to borrow from
Lyly's comparatively insignificant experiments. {62}

Marlowe's influence in tragedy. 'Richard III.'

Marlowe, who alone of Shakespeare's contemporaries can be credited with
exerting on his efforts in tragedy a really subs