1585 in literature

• February 2 – Hamnet and Judith, twin children of William Shakespeare and his wife Anne, are baptised at Stratford-upon-Avon.^[1][2]
• 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.
• At the order of the Inquisition, a collection of verses ("canczuni") in Italian and Maltese published by Maltese Dominican friar Pasquale Vassallo in 1584 is burned for its allegedly 'obscene' content.^[3]

• January 6 – Claude Favre de Vaugelas, French grammarian (died 1650)
• January 31 – Daniel Schwenter, German Orientalist, polymath, poet and librarian (died 1636)
• March 16 – Gerbrand Bredero, Dutch poet and playwright (died 1618)
• June 24 – Johannes Lippius, German Protestant theologian, philosopher, and theorist of music (died 1612)
• October 11 – Johann Heermann, German poet (died 1647)
• December 4 – John Cotton, English-born American theologian and minister (died 1652)
• December 13 – William Drummond of Hawthornden, Scottish poet (died 1649)

Uncertain dates

• Elizabeth Cary, Lady Falkland, née Elizabeth Tanfield, English poet, translator and dramatist (died 1639)^[4]
• Diego Jiménez de Enciso, Spanish dramatist (died 1634)

• January – Anthony Gilby, English Puritan and Bible translator (born c. 1510)
• February 6 – Edmund Plowden, English lawyer and theorist (born 1518)^[5]
• February 13 – Alfonso Salmeron, Spanish Jesuit Biblical commentator (born 1515)
• March 10 – Rembert Dodoens, Flemish botanist (born 1517)
• June 4 – Muretus, French humanist poet and writer in Latin (born 1526)^[6]
• June 20 – Christian Kruik van Adrichem, Dutch Catholic theologian (born 1533)
• July 30 – Christian Schesaus, German humanist poet (born 1535)
• September 1 – Alexander Arbuthnot, Scottish printer (year of birth unknown)
• September 18 – Molanus, Flemish theologian of the Counter Reformation (born 1533)^[7]
• December 8 – Piero Vettori, Italian humanist philologist and writer (born 1499)
• December 27 – Pierre de Ronsard, French poet (born 1524)