1598 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1598.

List of years in literature (table)
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Events

• Before September – A second edition of Love's Labour's Lost appears in London as the first known printing of a Shakespeare play to have his name on the title page ("Newly corrected and augmented by W. Shakespere").
• February 23 – Thomas Bodley refounds the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford.[1]
• March 28 – Philip Henslowe contracts Edward Alleyn and Thomas Heywood to act for the Admiral's Men in London for two years.[2]
• May 3 – The Spanish playwright Lope de Vega marries for the second time, to Juana de Guardo.
• c. May – The premiėre of William Haughton's Englishmen for My Money, or, A Woman Will Have Her Will introduces what is seen as the first city comedy, probably by the Admiral's Men at London's Rose Theatre.[3]
• c. July/September – Ben Jonson's comedy of humours Every Man in His Humour is probably first performed, by the Lord Chamberlain's Men at the Curtain Theatre, London, perhaps with Shakespeare playing Kno'well.[1]
• September 7 – Francis Meres' Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury is registered for publication, including the first list and critical discussion of Shakespeare's works
• September 22 – Ben Jonson kills actor Gabriel Spenser in a duel in London and is briefly held in Newgate Prison, but escapes capital punishment by pleading benefit of clergy.[4]
• October – Edmund Spenser's castle at Kilcolman, County Cork, near Doneraile in Ireland, is burned down by native forces under Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone. Spenser leaves for London shortly after.
• December 28 – London's The Theatre is dismantled.[5]
• unknown dates
  • Lancelot Andrewes turns down the bishoprics of Ely and Salisbury.
  • The English poet Barnabe Barnes is prosecuted in the Star Chamber for attempted murder of one John Browne, first by offering him a poisoned lemon and then by sweetening his wine with sugar laced with mercury sublimate; Browne survives both attempts.
  • John Marston's The Metamorphosis of Pigmalion's Image and Certaine Satyres begins a trend in English satirical writing that leads to official suppression in the following year.[6]

New books

Prose

• John Bodenham – Politeuphuia (Wits' Commonwealth)
• John Florio – A World of Words, Italian/English dictionary, the first dictionary published in England to use quotations ("illustrations") for meaning to the words
• Emanuel Ford – Parismus, the Renowned Prince of Bohemia (first part)
• King James VI of Scotland – The Trew Law of Free Monarchies
• Francis Meres – Palladis Tamia
• Merkelis Petkevičius – Polski z litewskim katechism
• John Stow – Survey of London[7]
• Zhao Shizhen – Shenqipu (3rd century, possible first publication)
• Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer – Enchuyser zeecaertboeck (Enkhuizen book of sea charts)

Drama

• Anonymous
  • The Famous Victories of Henry V earliest known publication
  • Mucedorus published
  • The Pilgrimage to Parnassus earliest probable date of performance
• Jakob Ayrer
  • Von der Erbauung Roms (The Building of Rome)
  • Von der schönen Melusina (Fair Melusina)
• Samuel Brandon – Virtuous Octavia
• Henry Chettle, Henry Porter and Ben Jonson – Hot Anger Soon Cold
• Robert Greene – The Scottish History of James IV published
• William Haughton – Englishmen for My Money
• Ben Jonson – Every Man in His Humour
• Anthony Munday – The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon
• Anthony Munday (and Henry Chettle?) – The Death of Robert Earl of Huntingdon
• Henry Porter – Love Prevented
• William Shakespeare
  • Henry IV, Part 1 (published)
  • Love's Labor's Lost (published)

Poetry

• Richard Barnfield
  • The Encomium of Lady Pecunia
  • Poems in Divers Humours
• George Chapman – translation of Homer's Iliad into English[1]
• Lope de Vega – La Arcadia and La Dragontea
• Christopher Marlowe – Hero and Leander (completed by Chapman following Marlowe's death)
• John Marston – The Metamorphosis of Pigmalian's Image and The Scourge of Villanie

Births

• July 29 – Henricus Regius, Dutch philosopher and correspondent of René Descartes (died 1679)[8]
• August 7 – Georg Stiernhielm, Swedish poet (died 1672)[9]
• unknown date – Johann George Moeresius, German poet (died 1657)

Deaths

• January 2 - Morris Kyffin, Welsh soldier and author (born c.1555)[10]
• January 9 – Jasper Heywood, English translator (born 1535)
• February 27 – Friedrich Dedekind, German theologian (born 1524)[11]
• April 10 – Jacopo Mazzoni, Italian philosopher (born 1548)
• August – Alexander Montgomerie, outlawed Scottish poet (born c. 1545/1550)
• December 6 – Paolo Paruta, Venetian historian (born 1540)
• December 15 – Philips van Marnix, lord of Sint-Aldegonde, Dutch statesman and author (born 1540)
• December 31 – Heinrich Rantzau, German humanist writer (born 1526)
• unknown date – David Powel, Welsh historian who popularised continuing legends such as that of Prince Madoc (born c. 1549)[12]

References

1. Williams, Hywel (2005). Cassell's Chronology of World History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. pp. 233–238. ISBN 0-304-35730-8.
2. Henslowe's Diary.
3. Stott, Andrew (2005). Comedy. London: Routledge. p. 44. ISBN 9780415299336.
4. Helen Ostovich, Holger Schott Syme, Andrew Griffin, Locating the Queen's Men, 1583-1603: Material Practices and Conditions of Playing, Ashgate Publishing, 2009, p. 91.
5. Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
6. Arthur F. Kinney; David W. Swain; Eugene D. Hill; William A. Long (17 November 2000). Tudor England: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. p. 624. ISBN 978-1-136-74530-0.
7. Palmer, Alan; Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 163–165. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
8. Gerrit Arie Lindeboom (1979). Descartes and Medicine. Rodopi. p. 22. ISBN 978-90-6203-882-4.
9. Marina Grut (2007). Royal Swedish Ballet: History from 1592 to 1962. Georg Olms. p. 12. ISBN 978-3-487-13494-9.
10. Glanmor Williams. "Kyffin, Morris (c.1555-1598), writer and soldier". Dictionary of Welsh Biography. National Library of Wales. Retrieved 7 July 2020.
11. John Francis Waller (1857). The Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography: A Series of Original Memoirs of Distinguished Men, of All Ages and All Nations. William Mackenzie, 22 Paternoster Row; Howard Street, Glasgow; South Bridge, Edinburgh. p. 49.
12. Todd, Margo (2004). "Powell, Gabriel (bap. 1576, d. 1611)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 26 March 2009.