1594 in literature
Encyclopedia

Events

  • The London theatres re-open in the spring, after two years of general inactivity due to the bubonic plague
    Bubonic plague
    Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...

     epidemic of 1592–94. Many of the actors who used to be Lord Strange's Men
    Lord Strange's Men
    Lord Strange's Men was an Elizabethan playing company, comprising retainers of the household of Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange . They are best known in their final phase of activity in the late 1580s and early 1590s...

     form a new organization, the Lord Chamberlain's Men
    Lord Chamberlain's Men
    The Lord Chamberlain's Men was a playing company for whom Shakespeare worked for most of his career. Formed at the end of a period of flux in the theatrical world of London, it had become, by 1603, one of the two leading companies of the city and was subsequently patronised by James I.It was...

    , under the patronage of Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon
    Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon
    Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon, of Hunsdon was an English nobleman.He was the son of Mary Boleyn, the sister of Anne Boleyn and also the mistress to King Henry VIII of England...

    , then Lord Chamberlain
    Lord Chamberlain
    The Lord Chamberlain or Lord Chamberlain of the Household is one of the chief officers of the Royal Household in the United Kingdom and is to be distinguished from the Lord Great Chamberlain, one of the Great Officers of State....

     of England.
  • On April 6 and 9, personnel from Queen Elizabeth's Men
    Queen Elizabeth's Men
    Queen Elizabeth's Men was a playing company or troupe of actors in English Renaissance theatre. Formed in 1583 at the express command of Queen Elizabeth, it was the dominant acting company for the rest of the 1580s, as the Admiral's Men and the Lord Chamberlain's Men would be in the decade that...

     and Sussex's Men perform the early King Leir
    King Leir
    King Leir is an anonymous Elizabethan play about the life of the ancient Celtic king Leir of Britain. It was published in 1605 but was entered into the Stationers' Register on 15 May 1594...

    at the Rose Theatre
    The 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),...

    .
  • The re-organized Admiral's Men
    Admiral's Men
    The Admiral's Men was a playing company or troupe of actors in the Elizabethan and Stuart eras...

     begin performances on May 14, with Christopher Marlowe
    Christopher Marlowe
    Christopher Marlowe was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. As the foremost Elizabethan tragedian, next to William Shakespeare, he is known for his blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his mysterious death.A warrant was issued for Marlowe's arrest on 18 May...

    's The Jew of Malta
    The Jew of Malta
    The Jew of Malta is a play by Christopher Marlowe, probably written in 1589 or 1590. Its plot is an original story of religious conflict, intrigue, and revenge, set against a backdrop of the struggle for supremacy between Spain and the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean that takes place on the...

    .
  • Franciscus Gomarus
    Franciscus Gomarus
    Franciscus Gomarus , was a Dutch theologian, a strict Calvinist and opponent of the teaching of Jacobus Arminius , which was formally judged at the Synod of Dort .-Life:His parents, having embraced the principles of the Reformation, emigrated to the Palatinate in 1578, in order...

     becomes professor of theology at Leiden.
  • The Comedy of Errors
    The Comedy of Errors
    The Comedy of Errors is one of William Shakespeare's earliest plays. It is his shortest and one of his most farcical comedies, with a major part of the humour coming from slapstick and mistaken identity, in addition to puns and word play. The Comedy of Errors is one of only two of Shakespeare's...

    is performed at Gray's Inn
    Gray's Inn
    The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns...

     on December 28.

New books

  • Sir John Davys - The Seamans Secrets
  • Richard Hooker -Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie
  • The earliest edition of Christopher Marlowe
    Christopher Marlowe
    Christopher Marlowe was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. As the foremost Elizabethan tragedian, next to William Shakespeare, he is known for his blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his mysterious death.A warrant was issued for Marlowe's arrest on 18 May...

    's The Massacre at Paris
    The Massacre at Paris
    The Massacre at Paris is an Elizabethan play by the English dramatist Christopher Marlowe. It concerns the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre, which took place in Paris in 1572, and the part played by the Duc de Guise in those events....

    is undated, but was most probably printed in 1594
  • Thomas Nashe
    Thomas Nashe
    Thomas Nashe was an English Elizabethan pamphleteer, playwright, poet and satirist. He was the son of the minister William Nashe and his wife Margaret .-Early life:...

     - The Unfortunate Traveller
    The Unfortunate Traveller
    The Unfortunate Traveller: or, the Life of Jack Wilton by Thomas Nashe is a picaresque novel set during the reign of Henry VIII of England....


New drama

  • Anonymous - A Knack to Know an Honest Man
  • Anonymous - Selimus published
  • Anonymous - The Taming of a Shrew published
  • Anonymous - The True Tragedy of Richard III
    The True Tragedy of Richard III
    The True Tragedy of Richard III is an anonymous Elizabethan history play on the subject of Richard III of England. It has attracted the attention of scholars of English Renaissance drama principally for the question of its relationship with Shakespeare's Richard III.The True Tragedy of Richard III...

    published
  • Samuel Daniel
    Samuel Daniel
    Samuel Daniel was an English poet and historian.-Early life:Daniel was born near Taunton in Somerset, the son of a music-master. He was the brother of lutenist and composer John Danyel. Their sister Rosa was Edmund Spenser's model for Rosalind in his The Shepherd's Calendar; she eventually married...

     - Cleopatra
  • Robert Greene
    Robert 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...

     - Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay
    Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay
    The Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay is an Elizabethan era stage play, a comedy written by Robert Greene. Widely regarded as Greene's best and most significant play, it has received more critical attention than any other of Greene's dramas.-Date:The date of authorship of Friar...

    published
    • - Orlando Furioso published
  • Thomas Lodge
    Thomas Lodge
    Thomas Lodge was an English dramatist and writer of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods.-Early life and education:...

     & Robert Greene - A Looking Glass for London
    A Looking Glass for London
    A Looking Glass for London and England is an Elizabethan era stage play, a collaboration between Thomas Lodge and Robert Greene. Recounting the Biblical story of Jonah and the fall of Nineveh, the play is a noteworthy example of the survival of the Medieval morality play style of drama in the...

    published
  • Thomas Lodge - The Wounds of Civil War
    The Wounds of Civil War
    The Wounds of Civil War is an Elizabethan era stage play, written by Thomas Lodge. A dramatization of the ancient Roman conflict between Marius and Sulla, the play is generally considered Lodge's only extant solo drama.-Publication:...

    published
  • Lope de Vega
    Lope de Vega
    Félix Arturo Lope de Vega y Carpio was a Spanish playwright and poet. He was one of the key figures in the Spanish Golden Century Baroque literature...

     - El maestro de danzar - (The Dancing Master)
  • John Lyly
    John Lyly
    John 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...

     - Mother Bombie
    Mother Bombie
    Mother Bombie is an Elizabethan era stage play, a comedy by John Lyly. It is unique in Lyly's dramatic canon as a work of farce and social realism; in Mother Bombie alone, Lyly departs from his dream world of classical allusion and courtly comedy to create a "vulgar realistic play of rustic life"...

    published
  • Christopher Marlowe
    Christopher Marlowe
    Christopher Marlowe was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. As the foremost Elizabethan tragedian, next to William Shakespeare, he is known for his blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his mysterious death.A warrant was issued for Marlowe's arrest on 18 May...

     (& Thomas Nashe
    Thomas Nashe
    Thomas Nashe was an English Elizabethan pamphleteer, playwright, poet and satirist. He was the son of the minister William Nashe and his wife Margaret .-Early life:...

    ?) - Dido, Queen of Carthage
    Dido, Queen of Carthage
    Dido, Queen of Carthage is a short play written by the English playwright Christopher Marlowe, with possible contributions by Thomas Nashe. The story of the play focuses on the classical figure of Dido, the Queen of Carthage...

    published
  • William Shakespeare
    William Shakespeare
    William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

    :
    • The Comedy of Errors
      The Comedy of Errors
      The Comedy of Errors is one of William Shakespeare's earliest plays. It is his shortest and one of his most farcical comedies, with a major part of the humour coming from slapstick and mistaken identity, in addition to puns and word play. The Comedy of Errors is one of only two of Shakespeare's...

      performed
    • Titus Andronicus
      Titus Andronicus
      Titus Andronicus is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, and possibly George Peele, believed to have been written between 1588 and 1593. It is thought to be Shakespeare's first tragedy, and is often seen as his attempt to emulate the violent and bloody revenge plays of his contemporaries, which were...

      published
  • Robert Wilson
    Robert Wilson (dramatist)
    Robert Wilson , was an Elizabethan dramatist who worked primarily in the 1580s and 1590s. He is also believed to have been an actor who specialized in clown roles....

     - The Cobbler's Prophecy published

Poetry

  • Richard Barnfield
    Richard Barnfield
    Richard Barnfield , English poet, was born at Norbury, Staffordshire, and brought up in Newport, Shropshire.He was baptized on 13 June 1574, the son of Richard Barnfield, gentleman. His obscure though close relationship with Shakespeare has long made him interesting to scholars...

     - The Affectionate Shepherd
  • George Chapman
    George Chapman
    George Chapman was an English dramatist, translator, and poet. He was a classical scholar, and his work shows the influence of Stoicism. Chapman has been identified as the Rival Poet of Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Minto, and as an anticipator of the Metaphysical Poets...

     - The Shadow of Night
    The Shadow of Night
    The Shadow of Night is a long poem written by George Chapman; it was first published in 1594, in an edition printed by Richard Field for William Ponsonby, the prestigious publisher of Edmund Spenser and Sir Philip Sidney....

  • William Shakespeare
    William Shakespeare
    William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

     - The Rape of Lucrece
    The Rape of Lucrece
    The Rape of Lucrece is a narrative poem by William Shakespeare about the legendary Lucretia. In his previous narrative poem, Venus and Adonis , Shakespeare had included a dedicatory letter to his patron, the Earl of Southampton, in which he promised to write a "graver work"...

  • Thomas Storer
    Thomas Storer
    Thomas Storer was an English poet.Storer was born in London, England around 1571, and in 1587, enrolled into Christ Church, Oxford where he would attain his degree of M.A. in 1594. Toward the latter end of that year, Storer wrote the Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey — a piece which illustrated...

     - Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey
  • Henry Willobie
    Henry Willobie
    Henry Willobie is the supposed author of a 1594 poem called Willobie his Avisa , whose main claim to fame is a possible connection with William Shakespeare's personal life....

     - Willobie his Avisa

Births

  • January 24 - Pierre de Marca
    Pierre de Marca
    Pierre de Marca was a French bishop and historian, born at Gan in Béarn of a family distinguished in the magistracy....

    , historian (died 1662)
  • date unknown
    • Antoine Gérard de Saint-Amant
      Antoine Gérard de Saint-Amant
      Antoine Girard, sieur de Saint-Amant , French poet, was born near Rouen.His father was a merchant who had, according to his son's account, been a sailor and had commanded for 22 years "une escadre de la reine Elizabeth"--a vague statement that lacks confirmation...

      , French poet (died 1661)
    • John Spelman
      John Spelman
      Sir John Spelman was an English historian and politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1626. He is known for his biography of Alfred the Great.-Life:...

      , historian (died 1643)
    • Maria Tesselschade Visscher
      Maria Tesselschade Visscher
      Maria Tesselschade Roemers Visscher, also called Maria Tesselschade Roemersdochter Visscher or Tesselschade was a Dutch poet and engraver.-Life:...

      , Dutch poet (died 1649)

Deaths

  • February
    • Barnabe Googe
      Barnabe Googe
      Barnabe Googe or Gooche was a poet and translator, one of the earliest English pastoral poets.-Early life:...

      , poet (born 1540)
    • William Painter
      William Painter
      William Painter was an English author and translator.William Painter was a native of Kent. He matriculated at St John's College, Cambridge, in 1554. In 1561 he became clerk of the ordnance in the Tower of London, a position in which he appears to have amassed a fortune out of the public funds...

      , translator (born about 1540)
  • April 29 - Thomas Cooper
    Thomas Cooper (bishop)
    Thomas Cooper was an English bishop, lexicographer, and writer.-Life:He was born in Oxford, where he was educated at Magdalen College...

    , bishop, lexicographer and writer
  • June 3 - John Aylmer
    John Aylmer (English constitutionalist)
    John Aylmer was an English bishop, constitutionalist and a Greek scholar.-Early life and career:He was born at Aylmer Hall, Tilney St. Lawrence, Norfolk...

    , constitutionalist and translator
  • July - Girolamo Mei
    Girolamo Mei
    Girolamo Mei was an Italian historian and humanist, famous in music history for providing the intellectual impetus to the Florentine Camerata, which attempted to revive ancient Greek music drama. He was born Florence, and died in Rome.Mei was the first European after Boethius to do a detailed...

    , humanist and historian (born 1519)
  • July 16 - Thomas Kyd
    Thomas Kyd
    Thomas Kyd was an English dramatist, the author of The Spanish Tragedy, and one of the most important figures in the development of Elizabethan drama....

    , dramatist (born 1558)
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