1631 in literature

This article is a summary of the literary events and publications of 1631.

Events

 * January 9 – Love's Triumph Through Callipolis, a masque written by Ben Jonson and designed by Inigo Jones, is staged at Whitehall Palace.
 * January 11 – The Master of the Revels in England refuses to license Philip Massinger's new play, Believe as You List, because of its seditious content; it is first performed in a revised version on May 7.
 * February 5 – Puritan minister and theologian Roger Williams emigrates from England to Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
 * February 22 – Chloridia, the year's second Jonson/Jones masque, is performed.
 * June 10 – The King's Men perform Pericles, Prince of Tyre (c.1607/8) at the Globe Theatre.
 * The young Blaise Pascal moves with his family to Paris.
 * Thomas Hobbes is employed as a tutor by the Cavendish family, to teach the future Earl of Devonshire.
 * Publication of the "Wicked Bible" by Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, the royal printers in London, an edition of the King James Version of the Bible in which a typesetting erratum leaves the seventh of the Ten Commandments with the word not omitted from the sentence "Thou shalt not commit adultery". Copies are withdrawn and about a year later the publishers are called to the Star Chamber, fined £300 and have their licence to print revoked.

Prose

 * Johann Philipp Abelin – Arma Suecica, volume 1
 * Moses Amyraut – Traité des religions
 * Collected works of Jacobus Arminius published posthumously in Frankfurt
 * Robert Fludd – Medicina Catholica (Volume 2)
 * Thomas Harriot – Artis analyticae praxis
 * James Mabbe – Celestina, or the Tragicomedy of Calisto and Melibea, a 300-page closet drama or "novel in dialogue," translated from the Spanish-language original of Fernando de Rojas, La Celestina (1499)
 * Wicked Bible, a reprint of the King James Bible notable for typographical errors
 * William Oughtred – Clavis mathematicae

Drama

 * Anonymous – Fair Em published
 * George Chapman – Caesar and Pompey published
 * Henry Chettle – Hoffman published
 * Lope de Vega
 * Punishment without Revenge (El castigo sin venganza)
 * La noche de San Juan
 * Thomas Goffe – The Raging Turk published
 * Peter Hausted – Senile Odium
 * Thomas Heywood – The Fair Maid of the West, Parts 1 and 2 (published; probably performed in the previous year)
 * Ben Jonson
 * Chloridia (masque)
 * Love's Triumph Through Callipolis (masque)
 * Ralph Knevet – Rhodon and Iris (masque)
 * James Mabbe – The Spanish Bawd published
 * Jean Mairet – La Silvanire, ou la Morte-vive
 * Shackerley Marmion – Holland's Leaguer runs for a highly unusual six straight performances
 * John Marston, with William Barkstead & Lewis Machin (?) – The Insatiate Countess published
 * Philip Massinger
 * Believe as You List
 * The Emperor of the East
 * Thomas May – Antigone, the Theban Princess published
 * Jean Rotrou – L'Hypocondriaque
 * James Shirley
 * The Traitor
 * Love's Cruelty
 * The Humorous Courtier
 * Love Tricks published as The School of Compliment
 * Aurelian Townshend – Albion's Triumph (masque)
 * Robert Ward (?) – Fucus Histriomastix
 * Arthur Wilson – The Swisser
 * Richard Zouche – The Sophister

Poetry

 * Richard Braithwait – The English Gentleman

Births

 * January 1 – Katharine Philips (Orinda), English poet (died 1664)
 * February 22 – Peder Syv, Danish philologist, folklorist and priest (died 1702)
 * March 16 – René Le Bossu, French critic (died 1680)
 * April – John Phillips, English satirist and nephew of John Milton (died 1706)
 * July 15 – Richard Cumberland, English philosopher (died 1718)
 * August 9 – John Dryden, English poet and dramatist (died 1700)
 * October 18 – Michael Wigglesworth, English-born American poet and minister (died 1705)
 * Unknown date – John Barret, English religious writer and Presbyterian minister (died 1713)

Deaths

 * February 7 – Gabriel Harvey, English poet and author (born c. 1545)
 * March 31 – John Donne, English poet and Dean of St Paul's (born 1572)
 * May 6 – Robert Bruce Cotton, English antiquary and founder of Cotton Library (born 1570)
 * May 25 – Samuel Harsnett, English religious writer and archbishop (born 1561)
 * May 26 – Enrico Caterino Davila, Italian historian, murdered (born 1576)
 * July 28 – Guillén de Castro y Bellvis, Spanish dramatist (born 1569)
 * September 22 – Cardinal Federico Borromeo, Italian archbishop and founder of Biblioteca Ambrosiana (born 1564)
 * October 26
 * Lewis Bayly, Welsh or Scottish-born religious writer and bishop writing in English (unknown year of birth)
 * Catherine de Parthenay, Viscountess and Princess of Rohan, French Huguenot noblewoman, mathematician, poet, playwright and translator (born 1554)
 * November 29 – Edmond Richer, French theologian (born 1559)
 * December 23 – Michael Drayton, English poet (born 1563)