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.
*Richard Flecknoe sails from Lisbon to Brazil.
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.
June 9 – Richard Lovelace, an English Cavalier poet, begins his second imprisonment for opposition to Parliament.
June – Pierre Gassendi, having given up lecturing at the Collège Royal because of ill-health, returns to his home area of Digne.
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 Although it will not be published until 1660, he produces presentation copies for friends.
*Richard Crashaw, exiled in Paris, publishes two hymns in Latin.
*King Frederick III of Denmark establishes the Royal Library, Denmark.

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
John Wilkins – Mathematical Magick
Gerrard Winstanley – ''The Mystery of God''

Christen Aagaard – Threni Hyperborci
Richard Corbet – Poetica Stromata
Mildmay Fane, 2nd Earl of Westmorland – Otia Sacra
Robert Herrick
*Hesperides
*Noble Numbers
Francisco de Borja y Aragón – Obras en verso
Francisco López de Zárate – La invención de la Cruz
Francisco de Quevedo – ''El Parnaso español, en dos cumbre dividido, con las nueve musas''

February 1 – Elkanah Settle, English poet and dramatist
November 12 – Juana Inés de la Cruz, Mexican Hieronymite nun, polymath, poet and playwright
Unknown date – Gaspard Abeille, French poet
Earliest year – Mihai Iștvanovici, Wallachian typographer and poet