1634 in literature

The year 1634 in literature involved some significant literary events and new works.

Events

• January 1 - The King's Men perform Cymbeline at the court of King Charles I of England.
• January 22 - The King's Men perform Davenant's The Wits at the Blackfriars Theatre in the City of London.
• February 3 - James Shirley's spectacular masque The Triumph of Peace is staged in London. A repeat performance takes place on February 13.
• February 6 - Shirley's play The Gamester is performed at court.^[1]
• February 18 - Thomas Carew's masque Coelum Britannicum is staged at Whitehall Palace.
• April 7 - The King's Men perform Chapman's Bussy D'Ambois at court.
• April 8 - The Two Noble Kinsmen is entered into the Stationers' Register; it is published later in the year.
• May 1 - Lodowick Carlell's play The Spartan Lady (now lost) is performed.
• May 7 - William Prynne is sentenced by the Star Chamber in England to a £5,000 fine, life imprisonment, pillorying and the loss of part of his ears when his Histriomastix (published 1632) is viewed as an attack on King Charles I of England and Queen Henrietta Maria.^[2]
• May 21 - A play called Lisander and Callista is performed — probably a version of the Fletcher/Massinger collaboration The Lovers' Progress.
• July 30 - Ben Jonson's final masque, Love's Welcome at Bolsover, is performed at Bolsover Castle in the East Midlands of England.
• The first part of Giambattista Basile's fairy tale collection The Pentamerone (Neapolitan: Lo cunto de li cunti overo lo trattenemiento de peccerille, "The Tale of Tales, or Entertainment for Little Ones") is published posthumously by his sister Adriana in Naples under the pseudonym Gian Alesio Abbatutis, including Cenerentola, an early version of Cinderella.
• The Académie française is founded by Cardinal Richelieu.
• First Théâtre du Marais opens in Paris.
• The first Oberammergau Passion Play is performed in Bavaria
• The Duke de Medinaceli forces Francisco de Quevedo into a 3-month marriage with Doña Esperanza de Aragón.^[3]

New books

• Moses Amyraut - Traité de la predestination
• Alonso Jerónimo de Salas Barbadillo - El Curioso y fabio Alexandro
• John Blaxton - The English Usurer
• Francisco de Quevedo
  • La cuna y la sepultura ("The cradle and the sepulchre")
  • Translation of La introducción a la vida devota ("The introduction to a life of devotion") of Francis of Sales
• William Haydon - The True Picture and Relation of Prince Henry...
• Thomas Herbert - Some Yeares Travels into Divers Parts of Asia and Afrique
• Thomas Muffet (comp.) - Insectorum sive Minimorum Animalium Theatrum (published posthumously)

New drama

• Juan Ruiz de Alarcón - La verdad sospechosa (published)
• Richard Brome and Thomas Heywood - The Late Lancashire Witches
• William Davenant
  • The Wits
  • Love and Honour, also known as The Courage of Love
  • The Temple of Love (masque)
• Lope de Vega - Las bizarrías de Belisa
• John Ford (and Thomas Dekker?) - Perkin Warbeck published
• Thomas Heywood - A Maidenhead Well Lost published
• Ben Jonson - Love's Welcome at Bolsover
• John Milton - Comus (masque)
• Thomas Nabbes - Tottenham Court
• James Shirley
  • The Example
  • The Opportunity
  • The Triumph of Peace (masque)

Poetry

• Richard Crashaw - Epigrammatum sacrorum liber ("A Book of Sacred Epigrams", in Latin)
• Lope de Vega
  • La Gatomaquia ("The catfight")
  • Rimas humanas y divinas del licenciado Tomé de Burguillos
• William Habington - Castara (published anonymously)
• Johann von Rist - Musa Teutonica

Births

• March 18 – Madame de la Fayette, French novelist (died 1693)
• July 14 – Pasquier Quesnel, French theologian (died 1719)
• December 15 – Thomas Hansen Kingo, Danish poet, hymnist and bishop (died 1703)
• Unknown date – Pierre Thomas, French scholar and memoirist (died 1698)

Deaths

• May 12 – George Chapman, English dramatist, poet and translator (born c. 1559)
• June 25 – John Marston, English dramatist (born 1576)
• August 9 – William Noy, legal writer (born 1577)
• December 22 – Matthew Rader, Tyrolean philologist and historian (born 1561)
• Unknown date – Tomos Prys, Welsh-language poet (born c. 1564)
• Probable year of birth
  • Randle Cotgrave, English lexicographer (born 1587)
  • John Webster, English dramatist (born c. 1580)

References