1621 in literature

Events from the year 1621 in literature.

Events

 * January 27 – Sir Francis Bacon is created Viscount St Alban.
 * February 3 – John Chamberlain writes to Sir Dudley Carleton telling him the anonymous author of the tract Vox Populi has been revealed to be the radical preacher Thomas Scott.
 * May 3 – Sir Francis Bacon is imprisoned in the Tower of London after being convicted of receiving bribes, but pardoned by King James I later in the year.
 * August 26 – Barten Holyday's allegorical play Technogamia, originally produced at Christ Church, Oxford in 1618, is staged before James I at Woodstock Palace. He dislikes it, but is persuaded to stay to the end for the student actors' sakes.
 * September 24 – The earliest known copy of the Corante, generally regarded as the first English newspaper, is published.
 * November 22 – The English poet John Donne is installed as Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London.
 * December 30 – The Spanish writer Francisco de Borja y Aragón is replaced as Viceroy of Peru by Juan Jiménez de Montalvo, and embarks for home on the following day.

Uncertain date
 * Jeremias Drexel gives up preaching in order to write a biography of Elisabeth of Lorraine.

Prose

 * William Alabaster – De bestia Apocalypsis
 * Robert Burton – The Anatomy of Melancholy
 * Méric Casaubon – Pietas contra maledicos patrii Nominis et Religionis Hostes
 * Mao Yuanyi (茅元儀, editor) – Wubei Zhi (武備志, Treatise on Armaments)
 * John Reynolds – The triumphs of Gods revenge, against the crying, and execrable sinne of murther
 * Rachel Speght – Mortalities Memorandum
 * John Taylor – Taylor's Motto
 * John Widdowes – A Description of the World
 * Lady Mary Wroth – The Countess of Montgomery's Urania

Drama

 * Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, & Philip Massinger – Thierry and Theodoret (published)
 * Thomas Dekker, John Ford, & William Rowley – The Witch of Edmonton
 * Ben Jonson – The Gypsies Metamorphosed
 * Tirso de Molina – El vergonzoso en palacio

Poetry

 * George Wither – Wither's Motto

Births

 * January 27 – Thomas Willis, English physician and natural philosopher (died 1675)
 * March 18 – Henry Teonge, English diarist and naval chaplain (died 1690)
 * March 31 – Andrew Marvell, English poet (died 1678)
 * April 25 – Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery, Anglo-Irish dramatist (died 1679)
 * July 8 – Jean de La Fontaine, French author of fables (died 1695)
 * December 3 – Bohuslav Balbín, Czech Jesuit writer (died 1688)
 * December 14 (baptised) – Thomas Long, English writer and cleric (died 1707)
 * unknown date – Jane Cavendish, English poet and playwright (died 1669)
 * probable – Françoise Bertaut de Motteville, French memoirist (died 1689)
 * Possible year (1621 or 1622) – Richard Allestree, English scholar and cleric (died 1681)

Deaths

 * January 25 – François Pithou, French author and jurist (born 1543)
 * March 4 – Ana de Jesús, Spanish nun and writer (born 1545)
 * May 11 – Johann Arndt, German theologian (born 1555)
 * June – William Strachey, English eye-witness historian (born 1572)
 * August 3 – Guillaume du Vair, French writer (born 1556)
 * August 15 – John Barclay, Scottish writer (born 1582)
 * September 25 – Mary Sidney, English playwright and translator (born 1561)
 * October 7 or 8 – Antoine de Montchrestien, French adventurer and dramatist (born c. 1575)
 * December 4 – Andrew Willet, English polemicist and cleric (born 1562)
 * unknown date – Ludwig Hollonius, German dramatist (born c. 1570)