1508 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1508.

Events

 * April 4 – John Lydgate's poem The Complaint of the Black Knight becomes the first book printed in Scotland, from the Chepman and Myllar Press in Edinburgh.
 * unknown date
 * The earliest known printed edition of the chivalric romance Amadis de Gaula, as edited and expanded by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo (died c. 1505), is published in Castilian at Zaragoza.
 * Elia Levita completes writing the Bovo-Bukh in Yiddish.
 * Estimated date of Manuscript D of Leonardo da Vinci's treatise on painting.

Prose

 * Desiderius Erasmus – Adagiorum chiliades (2nd ed., Venice)
 * Johannes Trithemius – De septem secundeis

Drama

 * Ludovico Ariosto – La Cassaria
 * The World and the Child (possible date)

Poetry

 * William Dunbar
 * The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy, and Other Poems
 * The Goldyn Targe

Births

 * April 3 – Jean Daurat (or Dorat), French poet and scholar, member of La Pléiade (died 1588)
 * April 23 – Georg Sabinus, German poet, diplomat and academic (died 1560)
 * June 13 – Alessandro Piccolomini, Italian humanist philosopher, translator and playwright (died 1579)
 * December 21 – Thomas Naogeorgus, German Protestant reformer and Latin-language playwright (died 1563)
 * Unknown dates
 * Marin Držić, Croatian dramatist, author and poet (died 1567)
 * Isabel de Josa, Catalan writer (died 1575)
 * Primož Trubar, Slovene Protestant reformer, pioneer of Slovenian written language (died 1586)

Deaths

 * February 4 – Conrad Celtes, German and Latin-language poet (born 1459)
 * May 13 – Martial d'Auvergne, French poet (born 1420)
 * June 6 – Ercole Strozzi, Italian poet, murdered (born 1471)
 * August 27 – Hieronymus Münzer, co-author of the Nuremberg Chronicle (born 1437/47)