1642 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1642.

Events

 * May – The 35-year-old John Milton marries the teenage Mary Powell. A few weeks later she leaves him in London and returns to her family in Oxfordshire.
 * May/June – English Cavalier poet Richard Lovelace is incarcerated in the Gatehouse Prison, Westminster for defying Parliament. During his time there he may be writing "To Althea, from Prison".
 * September 2 – The theatres in London are closed by the Puritan government; the "lascivious mirth and levity" of stage plays are to "cease and be forborn" for the next 18 years, during the English Civil War and the Interregnum. Richard Brome's A Jovial Crew is reportedly staged on the final day, making it the last to be legitimately performed in the era of English Renaissance theatre.

Prose

 * Thomas Browne – Religio Medici
 * Gauthier de Costes, seigneur de la Calprenède – Cassandre
 * Thomas Fuller – The Holy State and the Profane State
 * Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft – Nederduytsche Historiën (History of the Netherlands, publication begins)
 * Sir Walter Ralegh – The Prince, or Maxims of State
 * Alonso de Castillo Solórzano – La garduña de Sevilla y anzuelo de las bolsas
 * Tohfatu'l-Ahbab, a Persian-language work by Muhammad Ali Kashmiri

Drama

 * Antonio Coello – Los empeños de seis horas (approximate date)
 * Pierre Corneille – Polyeucte
 * François le Métel de Boisrobert – La Belle Palène
 * Donaires del gusto
 * Pierre du Ryer – Saul
 * Francis Jaques – The Queen of Corsica
 * James Shirley – The Sisters
 * Jan Vos – Klucht van Oene (The Farce of Oene)

Poetry

 * John Denham – Cooper's Hill, the first example in English of a poem devoted to local description, in this case the Thames scenery around the author's home at Egham in Surrey
 * Richard Lovelace – "To Althea, from Prison"
 * Alonso de Castillo Solórzano – Academias morales de las musas

Births

 * March 15 (baptised) – Laurence Hyde, 1st Earl of Rochester, English politician and writer (died 1711)
 * April 21 – Simon de la Loubère, French diplomat, writer, mathematician and poet (died 1729)
 * April 30 – Christian Weise, German dramatist and poet (died 1708)
 * December 30 – Vincenzo da Filicaja, Florentine poet (died 1707)
 * Unknown dates
 * Abdul-Qādir Bīdel, Persian Sufi poet (died 1720)
 * Josep Romaguera, Catalan author (died 1723)
 * Ihara Saikaku (井原 西鶴), Japanese poet and creator of the ukiyozōshi (floating world) genre of prose (died 1693)
 * James Tyrrell, English political philosopher (died 1718)
 * Probable year of birth
 * Thomas Shadwell, English dramatist (died 1698)
 * Edward Taylor, English-born colonial American poet and author (died 1729)

Deaths

 * May 14 – Nicolas Ysambert, French theologian (born c. 1565)
 * June 1 – Sir John Suckling, English poet (born 1609)
 * July 5 – Festus Hommius, Dutch Calvinist theologian (born 1576)
 * Unknown dates
 * Abdul-Haqq Dehlavi, Indian Islamic scholar and writer (born 1551)
 * Sir Francis Kynaston, English poet (born 1587)
 * James Mabbe, English scholar, poet and translator (born 1572)