Newgate Penitents: Further Aspects of Elizabethan Pamphlet Sensationalism

Abstract

Xt 'HEN Robert Greene died, in 1592, whether as a result of VI riotous and outragious surfeitinge, as Gabriel Harvey charged, or of some less scandalous malady, he left, in his Repentance, a document that bit deeply into the imaginations of his fellow pamphleteers. Witness the dedication of the anonymous Greenes Vision: Written at the instant of his death. Conteyning a penitent passion for the folly of his Pen. Sero sed serio: Manie haue published repentances vnder his name, but none more vnfeigned then this, being euerie word of his owne: his own phrase, his own method.' Thereafter the repentance motif served as a nucleus around which to group certain other sure-fire pamphlet baits: conycatching tricks, highway robbery, topical atrocities, and lurid descriptions of prison life. Such combinations, ushered in with conventional dream-vision machinery and seasoned with purloined or garbled Latin tags, bade fair, for a few years around the turn of the century, to form a distinctive literary genre. Since the body of this material is considerable, the present article proposes to examine only a small number of representative works that show some inner relationships and that are possibly all in some way connected with the pamphleteering of Samuel Rowlands.

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