1648 in literature explained

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 Although it will not be published until 1660, he produces presentation copies for friends.^[6]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)
• September 1 – Marin Mersenne, French theologian and philosopher (born 1588)
• December 16 – Arthur Duck, English lawyer and author (born 1580)^[18]

Notes and References

1. Book: Palmer, Alan . Palmer . Veronica . 1992 . The Chronology of British History . Century Ltd . London . 182–183 . 0-7126-5616-2.
2. Book: Fred Mayer. The Prose Characters of Richard Flecknoe: A Critical Edition. 1987. Garland. 978-0-8240-6019-0. lxxii.
3. Book: René Descartes: Principles of Philosophy: Translated, with Explanatory Notes. 6 December 2012. Springer Science & Business Media. 978-94-009-7888-1. 64.
4. http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/lovelace/lovebio.htm Life of Richard Lovelace.
5. Book: Abbé A. Martin. Histoire de la vie et des écrits de Pierre Gassendi. 1854. 149.
6. Book: Lawrence Principe. The Aspiring Adept: Robert Boyle and His Alchemical Quest. 8 October 2000. Princeton University Press. 0-691-05082-1. 231.
7. Book: David H. Stam. International Dictionary of Library Histories. November 2001. Routledge. 978-1-136-77785-1. 157.
8. Book: German Aesthetic and Literary Criticism: Winckelmann, Lessing, Hamann, Herder, Schiller and Goethe. Cambridge University Press. 1985. 288.
9. Book: Harbage, Alfred . Annals of English drama, 975-1700 : an analytical record of all plays, extant or lost, chronologically arranged and indexed by authors, titles, dramatic companies, & c . Routledge . London New York . 1989 . 9780415010993 . 282.
10. Book: Elmer, Peter . Witchcraft, witch-hunting, and politics in early modern England . Oxford University Press . Oxford, United Kingdom . 2016 . 9780198717720 . 316.
11. Book: The New American Cyclopædia: A Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge. D. Appleton. 1873. 2.
12. Book: Marcus, Leah . Unediting the Renaissance: Shakespeare, Marlowe, Milton . Routledge . London New York . 1996 . 9780415099349 . 183 . en.
13. Book: Belmonte, Javier . Las obras en verso del príncipe de Esquilache: amateurismo y conciencia literaria . Tamesis . Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK Rochester, NY . 2007 . 9781855661493 . 106.
14. Book: J. Bertrand Payne . Haydn's Universal Index of Biography . Salzwasser-Verlag GmbH. 2020 . 9783846047705 . 584.
15. Book: Darst, David . The comic art of Tirso de Molina . Dept. of Romance Languages, University of North Carolina Distribuido por Editorial Castalia . Chapel Hill Madrid . 1974 . 9788439920557 . 11.
16. Book: Smet, Ingrid . Menippean satire and the republic of letters, 1581-1655 . Librairie Droz . Genève . 1996 . 9782600001472 . 231.
17. Bodleian Library, MS Wood F.4, p. 83; qtd. Harold N. Hillebrand, "William Percy: An Elizabethan Amateur," Huntington Library Quarterly 1 (1938): 400.
18. Duck, Arthur.