15th century in literature Contents

15th century in literature
Contents

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  1Events
  
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  2New works and first printings of older works
  
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    2.1Drama
    
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  3Births
  
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  4Deaths
  
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  5In literature
  

After William Caxton introduced the printing press in England in 1476, vernacular literature flourished.^[29] The Reformation inspired the production of vernacular liturgy which led to the Book of Common Prayer (1549), a lasting influence on literary language. The English Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement in England dating from the late 15th to the 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that is usually regarded as beginning in Italy in the late 14th century. Like most of northern Europe, England saw little of these developments until more than a century later. Renaissance style and ideas were slow in penetrating England, and the Elizabethan era in the second half of the 16th century is usually regarded as the height of the English Renaissance.^[38]

This Italian influence can also be found in the poetry of Thomas Wyatt (1503–42), one of the earliest English Renaissance poets. He was responsible for many innovations in English poetry, and alongside Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1516/1517–47) introduced the sonnet from Italy into England in the early 16th century.^[39][40][41]

Elizabethan period (1558–1603)[edit]

See also: Elizabethan literature, English Renaissance theatre, and Elizabethan theatre

Poetry[edit]

Edmund Spenser (c. 1552–99) was one of the most important poets of the Elizabethan period, author of The Faerie Queene (1590 and 1596), an epic poem and fantastical allegorycelebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. Another major figure, Sir Philip Sidney (1554–86), was an English poet, whose works include Astrophel and Stella, The Defence of Poetry, and The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia. Poems intended to be set to music as songs, such as those by Thomas Campion (1567–1620), became popular as printed literature was disseminated more widely in households.

Drama[edit]

Among the earliest Elizabethan plays are Gorboduc (1561) by Sackville and Norton, and Thomas Kyd's (1558–94) The Spanish Tragedy (1592). Gorboduc is notable especially as the first verse drama in English to employ blank verse, and for the way it developed elements, from the earlier morality plays and Senecan tragedy, in the direction which would be followed by later playwrights.^[42] The Spanish Tragedy^[43] is an Elizabethan tragedy written by Thomas Kyd between 1582 and 1592, which was popular and influential in its time, and established a new genre in English literature theatre, the revenge play.^[44]

William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) stands out in this period as a poet and playwright as yet unsurpassed. Shakespeare wrote plays in a variety of genres, including histories, tragedies, comedies and the late romances, or tragicomedies. Shakespeare's career continues in the Jacobean period.
Other important figures in Elizabethan theatre include Christopher Marlowe, and Ben Jonson, Thomas Dekker, John Fletcher and Francis Beaumont.

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  is founded in the City of London. As the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers (the "Stationers' Company"), it continues to be a Livery Company in the 21st century.
  
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  1403–08 – The Yongle Encyclopedia is written in China.
  
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  c. 1408–11 – An Leabhar Breac is probably compiled by Murchadh Ó Cuindlis at Duniry in Ireland.
  
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  c. 1410 – John, Duke of Berry, commissions the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, illustrated by the Limbourg brothers between c. 1412 and 1416.
  
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  1424 – The first French royal library is transferred by the English regent of France, John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford, to England.
  
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  1425 – At about this date the first Guildhall Library (probably for theology) is established in the City of London under the will of Richard Whittington.^[1]
  
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  1434 – Japanese Noh actor and playwright Zeami Motokiyo is exiled to Sado Island by the Shogun.
  
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  1443 – King Sejong the Great establishes Hangul as the native alphabet of the Korean language. It is first described in the Hunminjeongeum published on 9 October 1446
  
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  1444: 15 June – Cosimo de' Medici founds the Laurentian Library in Florence.
  
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  1448 – Pope Nicholas V founds the Vatican Library in Rome.
  
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  1450 – Johannes Gutenberg has set up his movable type printing press as a commercial operation in Mainz by this date and a German poem has been printed.^[2]
  
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  1451
  
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    1 August – A manuscript of Dante's Divine Comedy is sold in London.^[3]
    
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    Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel in Warwickshire, England, presumed author of the chivalric tales of Le Morte d'Arthur, is imprisoned for most of the following decade on multiple charges including violent robbery and rape.
    
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  1452 – Completion of the Malatestiana Library (Biblioteca Malatestiana) in Cesena (in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, commissioned by the city's ruler Malatesta Novello), the first European public library, in the sense of belonging to the commune and open to all citizens.^[4]
  
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  1453 – Pageant of Coriolan staged in the piazza of Milan Cathedral.
  
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  1455
  
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    23 February – Johannes Gutenberg completes printing of the Gutenberg Bible in Mainz, the first major book printed with movable type in the West, using a textualis blackletter typeface.
    
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    5 June – French poet François Villon is implicated in a murder.
    
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  1457
  
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    14 August – The Mainz Psalter, the second major book printed with movable type in the West, the first to be wholly finished mechanically (including colour) and the first to carry a printed date, is printed by Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer for the Elector of Mainz.
    
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    The Central Library of Astan Quds Razavi in Persia is known to be in existence.
    
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  1460 – From about this date, Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, begins to form the Bibliotheca Corviniana, Europe's largest secular library.^[5]
  
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  1462: 8 November – First known sentence written in the Albanian language, a Formula e pagëzimit (baptismal formula) by Archbishop Pal Engjëlli.
  
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  1461 – Albrecht Pfister is pioneering movable type book printing in the German language and the addition of woodcut illustrations in Bamberg, producing a collection of Ulrich Boner's fables, Der Edelstein, the first book printed with illustrations. Soon after this he prints the first known Biblia pauperum (picture Bible).
  
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  1463: 5 January – François Villon is reprieved from hanging in Paris but never heard of again.
  

First incunable with printed illustrations, Ulrich Boner's Der Edelstein printed by Albrecht Pfister at Bamberg in 1461

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  1468
  
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    31 May – The Byzantine scholar Cardinal Basilios Bessarion donates his library to the Republic of Venice, the foundation of the Biblioteca Marciana.
    
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    The printers Johann and Wendelin of Speyer settle in Venice; their first book published here, Cicero's Epistolae ad familiares, appears in 1469.^[6]
    
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  1470
  
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    Johann Heynlin prints the first book in Paris, the Epistolae Gasparini of Gasparinus de Bergamo (d. c. 1431), a guide to writing Latin prose.
    
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    Nicolas Jenson's edition of Eusebius, published in Venice, is the first book to use a roman type based on the principles of typography rather than manuscript.
    
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