1597 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1597. Events February – Pembroke's Men contract with Francis Langley to play the next year at his new Swan Theatre in London. By March – Romeo and Juliet becomes the first of Shakespeare's plays to be published as a "bad quarto". March 17 – After the death of William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham on March 5, his place as Lord Chamberlain of England is taken by George Carey, 2nd Baron Hunsdon, son of a previous Lord Chamberlain. Lord Hunsdon reverses Cobham's policy of hostility toward the actors in English Renaissance theatre and returns to his father's policy of general tolerance and patronage. The playing company under his patronage, which includes William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage, becomes the Lord Chamberlain's Men. April 23 – The feast for the Order of the Garter at the Palace of Whitehall in London is a likely occasion for the first performance of Shakespeare's comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor. c. May 1 – The first performance of George Chapman's An Humorous Day's Mirth is the first comedy of humours played by the Admiral's Men at The Rose Theatre in London. July – The season goes disastrously wrong for Pembroke's Men, when they stage the scandalous play The Isle of Dogs in London. This provokes the authorities to close all of the London theaters for the remainder of the summer. Ben Jonson, co-writer of the play with Thomas Nashe, is arrested on the orders of Queen Elizabeth I of England's "interrogator," Richard Topcliffe, briefly jailed in Marshalsea Prison, and charged with "Leude and mutynous behavior". December – Miguel de Cervantes is jailed in Seville for discrepancies in his accounts as a tax collector. New books Prose Francis Bacon – Essays Thomas Beard – The Theatre of God's Judgements William Burton and Thomas Creede (translated from the Greek of Achilles Tatius) – The Most Delectable and Pleasaunt History of Clitiphon and Leucippe (translated from Leucippe and Clitophon) Johannes Vodnianus Campanus – Turcicorum tyrannorum qui inde usque ab Otomanno rebus Turcicis praefuerunt, descriptio Gabriel Harvey – The Trimming of Thomas Nashe Gentleman Christopher Middleton – The Famous Historie of Chinon of England Thomas Morley – Plain and Easy Introduction to Practical Music Dinko Zlatarić – Ljubav i smrt Pirama i Tizbe, iz veće tuđijeh jezika u hrvacki složene (Love and Death of Pyramus and Thisbe, Translated into Croatian from Several Foreign Languages)