Udall's authorship of
Ralph Roister Doister was attested by his pupil Thomas Wilson, fixing its likely date of composition at 1552. In the third edition of his
The Rule of Reason (1553) Wilson, who was later principal secretary to Elizabeth I, praised his former teacher as a master of double meanings and quoted the verse letter from
Ralph Roister Doister, which may be read, according to its punctuation or its line endings, either as an amorous epistle or a gross insult (an innovation Shakespeare may have imitated in his prologue to "Pyramus and Thisbe" in
A Midsummer Night's Dream). Those who believe Udall to be author of the interlude
Thersites, the Plautine imitation
Jack Juggler, the five-act comedy
Jacob and Esau, and the five-act morality
Respublica point to an evident mastery of native as well as classical comic forms and confirm Bale's judgment of Udall's importance to English literature. He stands with John Heywood, John Skelton, and Sir David Lyndsay.
Southampton was his birthplace. Conflicting information about his age comes from the records of his schooling at Winchester and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, but he is believed to have been born sometime in December 1504.
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