John Day

John Day 1574?-1640?, English dramatist. Educated at Cambridge, he was one of Philip Henslowe's group of playwrights, collaborating with Thomas Dekker, Henry Chettle, and others. The allegorical masque The Parliament of Bees, which was written c.1607 (pub. 1641) is his only important work. His other plays include The Isle of Gulls (1606) and The Travels of Three English Brothers (1607).

Day, John (c.1574–c.1640), playwright, collaborated with Dekker and others in a number of plays. His best work, The Parliament of Bees, a dramatic allegory or masque, appeared perhaps in 1607, although the earliest extant copy is of 1641. It is a charming and inventive piece containing a series of ‘characters’ of different bees with their virtues and vices, and ending with Oberon's Star Chamber, where he pronounces penalties on the offenders, the wasp, the drone, and the humble bee. The Parnassus Plays have been doubtfully attributed to Day.

Day, John (c.1574–c.1640), English dramatist, noted in Henslowe's diary as writing plays for the Admiral's Men, mainly in collaboration with Chettle, with whom he wrote the first part of The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green (1600). His later works include the ill-fated Isle of Gulls (1606), played by the boy company at Blackfriars; because of its satire on the uneasy relations between England and Scotland under James I, it led to the imprisonment of some of those connected with its production. Day, however, continued to write, being author with William Rowley of The Travails of the Three English Brothers (1607), on his own of The Parliament of Bees (1608), and with Dekker of The Bellman of Paris (1623), apparently his last play.