1585 in literature

Events

• February 2 – Hamnet and Judith, twin children of William Shakespeare and his wife Anne, are baptised at Stratford-upon-Avon.
• March 3 – The Teatro Olimpico, Vicenza, designed by Andrea Palladio, and completed by Vincenzo Scamozzi, opens with a production of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex), using trompe-l'œil scenery in one-point perspective.
• December 13 – The blind poet, playwright and actor Luigi Groto dies in Venice, having just come from the theatre, where he has played the role of the blind Oedipus Rex.

  New books

Prose

• John Calvin – The Commentaries... upon the Actes of the Apostles, Faithfully translated out of Latine into English for the great profite of our countrie-men, by Christopher Fetherstone, student in divinitie
• Miguel de Cervantes – La Galatea

  Drama

• Nicolas de Montreux – Athlette
• Richard Tarlton – The Seven Deadly Sins

  Poetry

• Thomas Watson – Amyntas

  Births

• January 6 – Claude Favre de Vaugelas, French grammarian
• January 31 – Daniel Schwenter, German Orientalist, polymath, poet and librarian
• March 16 – Gerbrand Bredero, Dutch poet and playwright
• June 24 – Johannes Lippius, German Protestant theologian, philosopher, and theorist of music
• October 11 – Johann Heermann, German poet
• December 4 – John Cotton, English-born American theologian and minister
• December 13 – William Drummond of Hawthornden, Scottish poet

• Elizabeth Cary, Lady Falkland, née Elizabeth Tanfield, English poet, translator and dramatist
• Diego Jiménez de Enciso, Spanish dramatist

  Deaths

• January – Anthony Gilby, English Puritan and Bible translator
• February 6 – Edmund Plowden, English lawyer and theorist
• February 13 – Alfonso Salmeron, Spanish Jesuit Biblical commentator
• March 10 – Rembert Dodoens, Flemish botanist
• June 4 – Muretus, French humanist poet and writer in Latin
• June 20 – Christian Kruik van Adrichem, Dutch Catholic theologian
• July 30 – Christian Schesaus, German humanist poet
• September 1 – Alexander Arbuthnot, Scottish printer
• September 18 – Molanus, Flemish theologian of the Counter Reformation
• December 8 – Piero Vettori, Italian humanist philologist and writer
• December 27 – Pierre de Ronsard, French poet