Thomas Nashe (redirected from Thomas Nash)

Nashe, Thomas 

(also Thomas Nash). Born 1567 in Lowestoft, Suffolk; died circa 1601 in Yarmouth, Norfolk. English author.

The son of a priest, Nashe graduated from Cambridge University in 1586. Nashe’s satires, including The Anatomie of Absurditie (1589) and Pierce Penilesse, His Supplication to the Divell (1592), are written in a Rabelaisian style. His satirical talent was probably best manifested in the play The Isle of Dogs (staged 1597), for which he was imprisoned. In his only extant comedy, Summers’ Last Will and Testament (published 1600), satire is muffled by elements of the morality play.

Nashe’s The Unfortunate Traveller, or The Life of Jacke Wilton (1594) is the first picaresque novel in the English language. The author vividly describes the life and mores of various countries and introduces a number of historical personages, including the poet and aristocrat H. Howard (Earl of Surrey), T. More, Erasmus of Rotterdam, and Luther.

WORKS

The Works, vols. 1–5. London, 1966.

REFERENCES

Istoriia angliiskoi literatury, vol. 1, fasc. 1. Moscow-Leningrad, 1943. Pages 359–61.
Hibbard, G. R. Thomas Nashe. London, 1962.

M. M. ZINDE