1591 in literature
Encyclopedia
Events
- In the spring of the year, a dispute with James BurbageJames BurbageJames Burbage was an English actor, theatre impresario, and theatre builder in the English Renaissance theatre. He built The Theatre, the facility famous as the first permanent dedicated theatre built in England since Roman times...
impels the Admiral's MenAdmiral's MenThe Admiral's Men was a playing company or troupe of actors in the Elizabethan and Stuart eras...
to leave The TheatreThe TheatreThe Theatre was an Elizabethan playhouse located in Shoreditch , just outside the City of London. It was the second permanent theatre ever built in England, after the Red Lion, and the first successful one...
and move to Philip HenslowePhilip HenslowePhilip Henslowe was an Elizabethan theatrical entrepreneur and impresario. Henslowe's modern reputation rests on the survival of his diary, a primary source for information about the theatrical world of Renaissance London...
's Rose TheatreThe Rose (theatre)The Rose was an Elizabethan theatre. It was the fourth of the public theatres to be built, after The Theatre , the Curtain , and the theatre at Newington Butts The Rose was an Elizabethan theatre. It was the fourth of the public theatres to be built, after The Theatre (1576), the Curtain (1577),...
. - Summer - Sir Walter RaleighWalter RaleighSir Walter Raleigh was an English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer. He is also well known for popularising tobacco in England....
secretly marries Elizabeth ThrockmortonElizabeth RaleighElizabeth, Lady Raleigh , née Throckmorton, was Sir Walter Raleigh's wife, and a Lady of the Privy Chamber to Queen Elizabeth I of England. Their secret marriage precipitated a long period of royal disfavour for Raleigh....
. - October 4 - John LylyJohn LylyJohn Lyly was an English writer, best known for his books Euphues,The Anatomy of Wit and Euphues and His England. Lyly's linguistic style, originating in his first books, is known as Euphuism.-Biography:John Lyly was born in Kent, England, in 1553/1554...
's MidasMidas (play)Midas is an Elizabethan era stage play, a comedy written by John Lyly. It is arguably the most overtly and extensively allegorical of Lyly's allegorical plays.-Performance and Production:...
is entered in the Stationers' RegisterStationers' RegisterThe Stationers' Register was a record book maintained by the Stationers' Company of London. The company is a trade guild given a royal charter in 1557 to regulate the various professions associated with the publishing industry, including printers, bookbinders, booksellers, and publishers in England...
. - November 8 - Publisher Thomas MillingtonThomas MillingtonThomas Millington was a London publisher of the Elizabethan era, who published first editions of three Shakespearean plays...
becomes a "freeman" (full member) of the Stationers' Company.
New books
- Andrea AlciatoAndrea AlciatoAndrea Alciato , commonly known as Alciati , was an Italian jurist and writer. He is regarded as the founder of the French school of legal humanists.-Biography:...
- Emblemata - Robert GreeneRobert Greene (16th century)Robert Greene was an English author best known for a posthumous pamphlet attributed to him, Greene's Groats-Worth of Wit, widely believed to contain a polemic attack on William Shakespeare. He was born in Norwich and attended Cambridge University, receiving a B.A. in 1580, and an M.A...
- Greene's Farewell to Folly - John GreenwoodJohn GreenwoodJohn Greenwood was an English Puritan divine and separatist.-Life:The date and place of his birth are unknown. He entered as a sizar at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, on 18 March 1577-1578, and commenced B.A...
- A Breife Refutation of Mr George Giffard, etc. - Melis StokeMelis StokeMelis Stoke was a Dutch writer who lived in the 13th century.-Biography:Melis Stoke was probably born in the Dutch province of Zeeland around 1235...
- Rijmkroniek (History of the Netherlands) (written during the 14th century) - "A. W." - A Book of Cookrye
New drama
- Anonymous - The Troublesome Reign of King JohnThe Troublesome Reign of King JohnThe Troublesome Reign of King John is an Elizabethan history play, generally accepted by scholars as the source and model that William Shakespeare employed for his own King John ....
(published) - John LylyJohn LylyJohn Lyly was an English writer, best known for his books Euphues,The Anatomy of Wit and Euphues and His England. Lyly's linguistic style, originating in his first books, is known as Euphuism.-Biography:John Lyly was born in Kent, England, in 1553/1554...
- Endymion, the Man in the MoonEndymion (play)Endymion, the Man in the Moon is an Elizabethan era stage play, a comedy by John Lyly. The play provides a vivid example of the cult of flattery in the royal court of Queen Elizabeth I, and has been called "without doubt, the boldest in conception and the most beautiful in execution of all Lyly's...
(published) - MuretusMuretusMuretus is the Latinized name of Marc Antoni Muret , a French humanist who was among the revivers of a Ciceronian Latin style and is among the usual candidates for the best Latin prose stylist of the Renaissance.-Biography:He was born at Muret near Limoges...
- Julius Caesar (published) - Robert Wilmot - Tancred and Gismund (published)
Poetry
- James VI of Scotland - Lepanto
- Sir Philip SidneyPhilip SidneySir Philip Sidney was an English poet, courtier and soldier, and is remembered as one of the most prominent figures of the Elizabethan Age...
– Astrophel and StellaAstrophel and StellaLikely composed in the 1580s, Philip Sidney's Astrophel and Stella is an English sonnet sequence containing 108 sonnets and 11 songs. The name derives from the two Greek words, 'aster' and 'phil' , and the Latin word 'stella' meaning star. Thus Astrophel is the star lover, and Stella is his star...
(published posthumously)
Births
- March 6 - Tommaso TamburiniTommaso TamburiniTommaso Tamburini was an Italian Jesuit moral theologian.-Life:Also known under the name of R. P. Thoma Tamburino....
, theologian (d. 1675) - August - Robert HerrickRobert Herrick (poet)Robert Herrick was a 17th-century English poet.-Early life:Born in Cheapside, London, he was the seventh child and fourth son of Julia Stone and Nicholas Herrick, a prosperous goldsmith....
, poet (d. 1674) - date unknown
- Thomas GoffeThomas GoffeThomas Goffe a minor Jacobean dramatist.-Life:Thomas Goffe was born in Essex in 1591. He first studied at Westminster School where he was considered a Queen Scholar. Goffe received a scholarship on 3 November 1609 to attend Christ Church, Oxford...
, dramatist (d. 1629) - Ivan Bunić VučićIvan Bunic VucicĐivo Sarov Bunić , now known predominantly as Ivan Bunić Vučić, was a Croatian politician and poet from the Republic of Ragusa .-Biography:...
, Ragusan poet (d. 1658)
- Thomas Goffe
Deaths
- August 23 - Luis Ponce de LeónLuis Ponce de LeónFray Luis Ponce de León was a Spanish lyric poet, Augustinian friar and theologian and academic, active during the Spanish Golden Age.-Early life:...
, poet and orator (b. 1527) - date unknown
- Noël du FailNoël du FailNoël du Fail, seigneur de La Hérissaye , was a French jurist and writer of the Renaissance...
, short story writer (b. c. 1520) - Johann FischartJohann FischartJohann Fischart was a German satirist and publicist.-Biography:Fischart was born, probably, at Strasbourg , in or about the year 1545, and was educated at Worms in the house of Kaspar Scheid, whom in the preface to his Eulenspiegel he mentions as his cousin and preceptor...
, satirist (b. c. 1545) - Veronica FrancoVeronica FrancoVeronica Franco was an Italian poet and courtesan in 16th century Venice.- Life as a courtesan :Renaissance Venetian society recognized two different classes of courtesans: the cortigiana onesta, the intellectual courtesan, and the cortigiana di lume, lower-class prostitutes who tended to live and...
, poet and courtesan (b. 1546)
- Noël du Fail