1588 in poetry

Events

• May-December - Lope de Vega serves in the Spanish Armada, where he begins writing his epic poem La Hermosura de Angélica.
• Christopher Marlowe writes The Passionate Shepherd to His Love either this year or in 1589.

  Works published

Great Britain">English poetry">Great Britain

• William Byrd, editor, Psalmes, Sonets, & Songs of Sadnes and Pietie, Made into Musicke of Five Parts, anthology of verse set to music
• Thomas Churchyard, The Worthines of Wales, prose and poetry
• Angel Day, Daphnis and Chloe, prose and poetry, translated from the French of Jacques Amyot

  Other

• Jean de Sponde, Essai de poemès chrétiens, published with a collection of prose meditations on four Psalms; France

  Births

• June 11 - George Wither, English poet and satirist
• Guillaume Bautru, French satirical poet and a founder member of the Académie française
• Richard Brathwait, English poet
• Leonard Digges, English translator and poet
• Josua Stegmann, German poet

  Deaths

• June 18 - Robert Crowley, English stationer, poet, polemicist and Protestant clergyman
• November 1 - Jean Daurat also spelled "Jean Dorat"; Latin name: "Auratus", French poet and scholar, member of the Pléiade
• Louis Bellaud, French Occitan language writer and poet