This article covers 1596 in poetry. Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature (for instance, Irish or France).

Contents

• Works published in English
• Works published in other languages
• Births
• Deaths
• See also
• Notes

From your confessor, lawyer and physician,
Hide not your case on no condition

— From Sir John Harington, A New Discourse of a Stale Subject, called the Metamorphosis of Ajax ^[1]

Works published in English

• Anonymous, King Edward the Fourth and the Tanner of Tamworth, a ballad ^[2]
• Thomas Campion, Poemata
• Thomas Churchyard, A Pleasant Discourse of Court and Wars ^[2]
• Henoch Clapham, A Briefe of the Bible ^[2]
• Peter Colse, Penelopes Complaint; or, A Mirrour for Wanton Minions ^[2]
• Anthony Copley, A Fig for Fortune ^[2]
• Roger Cotton:
  • An Armour of Proofe: Brought from the tower of David, to fight against Spannyardes, and all enimies of the trueth ^[2]
  • A Spirituall Song: Conteining an historicall discourse from the infancie of the world, until the present time ^[2]
• Sir John Davies, published anonymously, Orchestra; or, A Poem of Dauncing ^[2]
• John Dickenson, The Shepheardes Complaint ^[2]
• Michael Drayton:
  • Mortimeriados, ^[2] a long poem on the Wars of the Roses, in ottava rima (revised as The Barrons Wars 1603) ^[2]
  • The Tragicall Legend of Robert Duke of Normandy: [with] The legend of Maltilda; The legend of Piers Gaveston ^[2]
• Bartholomew Griffin, Fidessa, a sequence of sonnets
• Sir John Harington, A New Discourse of a Stale Subject, called the Metamorphosis of Ajax (also known by the shorter title Metamorphosis of Ajax), a satire for which Harrington was banished from the English court ^[1]
• Gervase Markham, The Poem of Poems; or, Sions Muse ^[2]
• Christopher Middleton, The Historie of Heaven ^[2]
• William Smith, Chloris; or, The Complaint of the Passionate Despised Shepheard ^[2]
• Edmund Spenser:
  • Colin Clouts Come Home Againe
  • Fowre Hymnes, published with the second edition of Daphnaida 1591
  • Prothalamion; or, A Spousall Verse in Honour of the Double Marriage of Ladie Elizabeth and Ladie Katherine Somerset ^[2]
  • The Second Part of the Faerie Queene: Containing the fourth, fifth and sixth books (books 1–3 first published in 1590; see also Faerie Queene 1609) ^[2]
• William Warner, Albions England, fourth edition (12 books); see also Albions England 1586, second edition 1589, third edition 1592, fifth edition 1602, A Continuance of Albions England 1606 ^[2]

Works published in other languages

• Francisco Rodrigues Lobo, Romances
• Alonso Pinciano, Filosofía antigua poética ("Antique Poetic Philosophy"), Spanish criticism ^[3]

Births

• September 4 – Constantijn Huygens (died 1687), Dutch poet and composer
• September – James Shirley (died 1666), English poet and playwright
• Xiao Yuncong (died 1673), Chinese landscape painter, calligrapher, and poet

Deaths

• October 3 – Florent Chrestien (born 1540), French satirist and Latin poet
• Bargeo (born 1517), Italian, Latin-language poet ^[4]
• Georg List (born 1532), German
• Henry Willobie (born 1575), English
• Ou Daren (born 1516), Ming dynasty poet and scholar

See also

• Poetry
• 16th century in poetry
• 16th century in literature
• Dutch Renaissance and Golden Age literature
• Elizabethan literature
• English Madrigal School
• French Renaissance literature
• Renaissance literature
• Spanish Renaissance literature
• University Wits

Notes