1653 in literature explained

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1653.

Events

• January 17 – John Evelyn begins to set out gardens at Sayes Court, Deptford, the house he has recently bought.^[1]
• March 26 – James Shirley's masque Cupid and Death is performed before the Portuguese ambassador in London.^[2]
• June – English actor Robert Cox is arrested at the Red Bull Theatre in London for performing a "droll" deemed to be a play (prohibited during the English Interregnum).^[3]
• September 9 – London publisher Humphrey Moseley enters into the Stationers' Register the plays The History of Cardenio (1613), attributed posthumously to William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, and Henry I (1624) and Henry II, attributed to Shakespeare and Robert Davenport; none survive.
• Pastor Daniel Klein's Grammatica Litvanica, the first printed prescriptive grammar of the Lithuanian language, is published in Latin by Johann Reusner in Königsberg, Duchy of Prussia,^[4] introducing the distinctive Lithuanian letter Ė.

New books

Prose

• Ralph Austen – A Treatise on Fruit-trees, showing the manner of grafting, setting, pruning, and ordering of them in all respects
• Baltasar Gracián – El criticón (second part)
• Blaise Pascal – Traité du triangle arithmétique
• Jeremy Taylor – Twenty-five Sermons
• Sir Thomas Urquhart
  • First English translation of Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel, Books I and II
  • Logopandecteision
• Izaak Walton -The Compleat Angler
• Arthur Wilson – The History of Great Britain, being the Life and Reign of King James I

Drama

• Richard Brome – Five New Plays, a collection of his dramas including A Mad Couple Well-Match'd, The Novella, The Court Beggar, The City Wit, and The Damoiselle
• John Ford (attributed) – The Queen (published)^[5]
• William Heminges – The Fatal Contract (published)^[6]
• Henry Killigrew – Pallantus and Eudora (published; Killigrew's revision of his own The Conspiracy, 1638)
• Philippe Quinault – Les Rivales
• James Shirley – The Court Secret (published)
• Lope de Vega – La discreta enamorada
• Agustín Moreto – El lindo don Diego
• Paul Scarron – Don Japhel d'Arménie

Poetry

• Margaret Cavendish – Poems and Fancies^[7]

Births

• January 13 – Philipp Jakob Spener, German theologian (died 1705)
• March 8 – Goodwin Wharton, English autobiographer and politician (died 1704)
• Unknown date – Chikamatsu Monzaemon (近松 門左衛門), Japanese dramatist (died 1725)
• Probable year of birth – Nathaniel Lee, English dramatist (died 1692)

Deaths

• May 26 – Robert Filmer, English political theorist (born 1558)
• July 10 – Gabriel Naudé, French librarian and scholar (born 1600)
• September 3 – Claudius Salmasius, French classical scholar (born 1588)
• September 23 – Jacques Goar, French Hellenist (born 1601)^[8]
• October 15 – Piaras Feiritéar, Irish-language poet and rebel (hanged; born c. 1600)
• December – John Taylor, English poet and waterman (born 1578)
• Unknown date
  • Zachary Boyd, Scottish poet (born 1585)
  • Lucrezia Marinella, Italian poet, writer and supporter of women's rights (born 1571)^[9]

Notes and References

1. Book: John Evelyn. The Diary of John Evelyn (Volume 1 of 2). 11 July 2018. ЛитРес. 978-5-04-082558-5. 278.
2. Book: The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature. 1: 600–1660 . 1974 . 1728.
3. Book: Roger. Clegg. Lucie. Skeaping. Lucie Skeaping. Singing Simpkin and other Bawdy Jigs: Musical Comedy on the Shakespearean Stage: Scripts, Music and Context. 2015-03-02. University of Exeter Press. 978-0-85989-962-8. 53–.
4. Web site: Kaunas. Domas. Žemaitaitis. Algirdas. Danielius Kleinas. Mažosios Lietuvos enciklopedija. 2023-01-14. lt.
5. Book: John Ford. The Selected Plays of John Ford: The Broken Heart, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, Perkin Warbeck. 29 August 1986. CUP Archive. 978-0-521-29545-1. 12.
6. Book: Gerald Eades Bentley. The Jacobean and Caroline Stage. 1956. At the Clarendon Press. 542.
7. Web site: Margaret Cavendish . The British Library . 26 March 2019.
8. Book: Ihor Ševcenko. Chronographiae quae Theophanis Continuati nomine fertur Liber quo Vita Basilii Imperatoris amplectitur: Recensuit Anglice vertit indicibus instruxit Ihor Ševcenko. 23 December 2011. Walter de Gruyter. 978-3-11-022739-0. 24.
9. Book: Rinaldina Russell. Italian Women Writers: A Bio-bibliographical Sourcebook. 1994. Greenwood Publishing Group. 978-0-313-28347-5. 234.