Overview of the events of 1634 in literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1634.
- January 1 – The King's Men perform Cymbeline at the court of King Charles I of England.
- January 22 – The King's Men perform Davenant's The Wits at the Blackfriars Theatre in the City of London.
- February 3 – James Shirley's spectacular masque The Triumph of Peace is staged in London. A second performance takes place on February 13.
- February 6 – Shirley's play The Gamester is performed at court.[1]
- February 18 – Thomas Carew's masque Coelum Britannicum is staged at Whitehall Palace.
- March – The Académie française begins life as a project sponsored by Cardinal Richelieu.[2]
- February 29 – Under pressure from the Duke de Medinaceli, Francisco de Quevedo marries Doña Esperanza de Aragón.[3]
- April
- April 7 – The King's Men perform Chapman's Bussy D'Ambois at court.
- April 8 – The tragicomedy The Two Noble Kinsmen (first performed about 1614) is attributed in the Stationers' Register in London to the late John Fletcher and William Shakespeare; it is published for the first time later in the year.
- May 1 – Lodowick Carlell's play The Spartan Lady is performed, but has since been lost.
- May 7 – William Prynne is sentenced by the Star Chamber in England to a £5,000 fine, life imprisonment, pillorying and clipping of his ears when his Histriomastix (published 1632) is viewed as an attack on King Charles I of England and Queen Henrietta Maria.[6]
- May 21 – A play called Lisander and Callista that is performed is probably a version of the Fletcher/Massinger collaboration The Lovers' Progress.
- July 30 – Ben Jonson's final masque, Love's Welcome at Bolsover, is performed at Bolsover Castle in the East Midlands of England.
- unknown date – The first part of Giambattista Basile's fairy tale collection The Pentamerone (Neapolitan: Lo cunto de li cunti overo lo trattenemiento de peccerille, "The Tale of Tales, or Entertainment for Little Ones") is published posthumously by his sister Adriana in Naples under the pseudonym Gian Alesio Abbatutis, including Cenerentola, an early version of Cinderella.
- Anonymous – Pentamerone (Neapolitan folk tales for young children)