1648 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1648.

Events

• February
  • Ordinances are passed in England against plays; actors are to be fined and theatres pulled down.^[1]
  • Richard Flecknoe sails from Lisbon to Brazil.^[2]
• April 7 – Edward Pococke becomes Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford, in succession to Dr Morris.
• April 16 – René Descartes meets Frans Burman, resulting in the Conversation with Burman.^[3]
• June 9 – Richard Lovelace, an English Cavalier poet, begins his second imprisonment for opposition to Parliament.^[4]
• June – Pierre Gassendi, having given up lecturing at the Collège Royal because of ill-health, returns to his home area of Digne.^[5]
• July 14 – During the siege of Colchester, a cannon nicknamed Humpty Dumpty, is blown off the walls, possibly inspiring the nursery rhyme.
• December – King Charles I is imprisoned in Windsor Castle, where he reportedly spends much of his time reading the plays of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson.
• unknown dates
  • Robert Boyle writes Seraphic Love, his first important work. Although it will not be published until 1660, he produces presentation copies for friends.^[6]
  • Richard Crashaw, exiled in Paris, publishes two hymns in Latin.
  • King Frederick III of Denmark establishes the Royal Library, Denmark.^[7]

New books

Prose

• Gauthier de Costes, seigneur de la Calprenède – Cléopâtre
• Robert Filmer – Freeholders Grand Inquest touching our Sovereign Lord the King and his Parliament
• Thomas Gage – The English-American, or a New Survey of the West Indies
• Baltasar Gracián – Agudeza y arte de ingenio
• Francisco Martínez de Mata – Memorial a razón de la despoblación y pobreza de España y su remedio
• José García de Salcedo Coronel – Comentarios al Panegírico del Duque de Lerma de Luis de Góngora
• Fray Marcos de Salmerón – El príncipe escondido
• Madeleine de Scudéry – Artamène, ou le Grand Cyrus, volume 1^[8]
• John Wilkins – Mathematical Magick
• Gerrard Winstanley – The Mystery of God

Drama

• Anonymous – Crafty Cromwell
• Anonymous – Kentish Fair, or the Parliament Sold to Their Best Worth^[9]
• Anonymous ("Mercurius Melancholicus") – Mistress Parliament Her Gossiping^[10]
• Jasper Mayne – The Amorous War

Poetry

• Christen Aagaard – Threni Hyperborci^[11]
• Richard Corbet – Poetica Stromata
• Mildmay Fane, 2nd Earl of Westmorland – Otia Sacra
• Robert Herrick^[12]
  • Hesperides
  • Noble Numbers
• Francisco de Borja y Aragón – Obras en verso^[13]
• Francisco López de Zárate – La invención de la Cruz^[14]
• Francisco de Quevedo (ed. Jusepe Antonio González de Salas) – El Parnaso español, en dos cumbre dividido, con las nueve musas

Births

• February 1 – Elkanah Settle, English poet and dramatist (died 1724)
• November 12 – Juana Inés de la Cruz, Mexican Hieronymite nun, polymath, poet and playwright (died 1695)
• Unknown date – Gaspard Abeille, French poet (died 1718)
• Earliest year – Mihai Iștvanovici, Wallachian typographer and poet (died c. 1720)

Deaths

• February 2 – George Abbot, English writer (born c. 1603)
• February 22 – Wilhelm Lamormaini, Luxembourgish Jesuit theologian (born 1570)
• March 12 – Tirso de Molina, Spanish dramatist (born 1571)^[15]
• May 26 – Vincent Voiture, French writer and poet (born 1597)^[16]
• May 28 (bur.) – William Percy, English poet and playwright (born 1570/74)^[17]
• July 31 – Benedictus van Haeften, Dutch theologian (born 1588)
• August 20 – Edward Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury Anglo-Welsh writer and soldier (born 1574)^[18]
• September 1 – Marin Mersenne, French theologian and philosopher (born 1588)
• December 16 – Arthur Duck, English lawyer and author (born 1580)^[19]