1608 in literature

The year 1608 in literature involved some significant events.

Events

• January 10 – Ben Jonson's The Masque of Beauty is performed by Queen Anne and her retinue at the Banqueting House, Whitehall, a sequel to The Masque of Blackness.
• February 9 – Another masque by Jonson, The Hue and Cry After Cupid, is performed at the Banqueting House, with sets designed by Inigo Jones.
• March 31 – Hamlet is performed aboard the East India Company ship Red Dragon, under the command of Capt. William Keeling.
• Henry Ainsworth publishes a response to Richard Bernard's The Separatist Schisme.
• Thomas Overbury is knighted.
• Juan Ruiz de Alarcón returns to Mexico from Spain, to take up an academic post.
• Arthur Johnston goes to Italy to study at Padua.
• The Morgan Bible is given by Cardinal Bernard Maciejowski, Bishop of Cracow, to Abbas I (Shah of Persia).
• Thomas Coryat begins his walking tour of Europe.

New books

• George Abbot – A Brief Description of the Whole World
• Robert Armin – A Nest of Ninnies
• Thomas Dekker – The Dead Term
• Thomas Dekker – The Bellman of London
• Francesco Maria Guazzo – Compendium Maleficarum
• Mathurin Régnier – Les Premieres d'Euvres ou Satyres de Regnier
• Salomon Schweigger – Newe Reyßbeschreibung Teutschland Auss to Constantinople
• "P. F." – The History of the Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Doctor John Faustus

New drama

• Lording Barry – Ram Alley (published)
• George Chapman – The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron
• John Day – Humour Out of Breath and Law Tricks published
• Thomas Heywood – The Rape of Lucrece published
• Ben Jonson
  • The Masque of Beauty performed, and published with The Masque of Blackness
  • The Hue and Cry After Cupid (performed and published)
• Henry Machin & Gervase Markham – The Dumb Knight
• The Merry Devil of Edmonton (attributed to William Shakespeare, Michael Drayton, and others)
• Thomas Middleton
  • The Family of Love, A Mad World, My Masters, and A Trick to Catch the Old One (published)
  • A Yorkshire Tragedy (attributed)
• John Sansbury – Periander
• William Shakespeare – King Lear (published)

Poetry

• See 1608 in poetry

Births

• February 6 – António Vieira, Portuguese Jesuit orator and writer (died 1697)
• February 12 – Daniello Bartoli, Jesuit writer (died 1685)
• December 9 – John Milton, poet and author (died 1674)
• date unknown
  • Thomas Fuller, churchman and historian (died 1661)
  • Antoine Le Maistre, Jansenist lawyer, author and translator (died 1658)

Deaths

• January 28 - Enrique Henríquez, Jesuit theologian (born 1536)
• February 16 – Nicolas Rapin, translator, poet and satirist (born 1535)
• February 26
  • Thomas Craig, poet (born c.1538)
  • John Still, bishop, formerly credited with authorship of Gammer Gurton's Needle (born c.1543)
• April 19 – Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset, statesman and poet (born 1536)
• June 19 – Alberico Gentili, legal writer (born 1552)
• July 26 – Pablo de Céspedes, poet and artist (born 1538)
• October 19
  • Martin Delrio, theologian (born 1551)
  • Geoffrey Fenton, writer and politician (born c.1539)
• date unknown
  • Mary Arden, mother of Shakespeare (born c.1540)
  • George Bannatyne, collector of Scottish poems (born 1545)
  • Nicolas de Montreux, novelist, poet and dramatist (born c.1561)
  • Laurence Tomson, Calvinist theologian (born 1539)
• probable - Jean Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, poet (born 1536)