1562 in literature explained

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1562.

Events

• January 18 – First performance of Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville's play Gorboduc before Queen Elizabeth I of England. It is the first known English tragedy and the first English-language play to employ blank verse.^[1]
• July 12 – Fray Diego de Landa, acting Bishop of Yucatán, burns the Maya codices (sacred books of the Maya) during the Spanish conquest of Yucatán.^[2]

New books

Prose

• Magdeburger Centurien (Magdeburg Centuries), volumes V and VI
• Melchior Cano – De Locis theologicis (posthumously published)
• Petrus Ramus – Grammaire française
• Richard Smyth – De Missa Sacrificio

Drama

• Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville – Gorboduc
• Nicholas Udall? - Jacke Jugeler

Poetry

• Arthur Brooke – The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet

Births

• January 13  - Mark Alexander Boyd, Scottish poet and soldier of fortune (died 1601)^[3]
• January 20 – Ottavio Rinuccini, Italian poet (died 1621)
• January 31 (bapt.) – Edward Blount, English publisher (died 1632)
• March – Francis Johnson, English Separatist theologian and polemicist (died 1618)^[4]
• March 27 – Jacob Gretser, German Jesuit writer (died 1625)^[5]
• August – Bartolomé Leonardo de Argensola, Spanish poet and historian (died 1631)
• November 25 – Lope de Vega, Spanish poet and dramatist (died 1635)^[6]
• Unknown dates
  • Henry Constable, English poet (died 1613)^[7]
  • Samuel Daniel, English poet (died 1619)
  • Francis Godwin, English writer and bishop (died 1633)
  • Johann Mechtel, German chronicler (died c. 1631)

Deaths

• July 23 – Götz von Berlichingen, German knight immortalized by Goethe (born c. 1480)
• September 5 – Katharina Zell, Protestant writer (born c. 1497)^[8]
• November 6 – Achille Bocchi, Italian humanist writer (born 1488)^[9]
• November 12 – Pietro Martire Vermigli, Italian theologian (born 1499)^[10]
• Unknown dates
  • Matteo Bandello, Italian novelist (b. 1480)
  • Nicholas Grimald, English poet and theologian (b. 1519)
• Probable year – George Cavendish, English biographer (born 1494)

Notes and References

1. Web site: Gorboduc, or the Tragedy of Ferrex and Porrox. 2007-11-14. https://web.archive.org/web/20070917205947/http://www.innertemple.org.uk/archive/gorboduc.html. 2007-09-17. dead.
2. Book: Derek Jones. Censorship: A World Encyclopedia. December 2001. Routledge. 978-1-136-79864-1. 1573.
3. Book: R Horn. Catalogue of the Printed Books in the Library of the Faculty of Advocates. 1867. 640.
4. Book: Scott Culpepper. Francis Johnson and the English Separatist Influence: The Bishop of Brownism's Life, Writings, and Controversies. 2011. Mercer University Press. 978-0-88146-238-8. 14.
5. [s:Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Jacob Gretser|Jacob Gretser]
6. Book: Jo Eldridge Carney. Renaissance and Reformation, 1500-1620: A Biographical Dictionary. 2001. Greenwood Publishing Group. 978-0-313-30574-0. 361.
7. Constable, Henry . 6 . Gosse . Edmund William . Edmund Gosse . 982 . 1.
8. Book: Elsie Anne McKee. Katharina Schütz Zell the Life and Thought of a Sixteenth-century Reformer. 1. Brill. 1999. 222-226.
9. Book: Peter G. Bietenholz. Thomas Brian Deutscher. Contemporaries of Erasmus: A Biographical Register of the Renaissance and Reformation. 1 January 2003. University of Toronto Press. 978-0-8020-8577-1. 157.
10. Book: McNair, Philip . 3 . 1967 . Peter Martyr in Italy: An Anatomy of Apostasy . registration . Oxford . Clarendon . 849189667 .