1644 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1644.

Events

 * April 15 – The second Globe Theatre is demolished by the Puritan government to make room for housing.
 * November 23 – The publication in London of Areopagitica; A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England.
 * December (end) – English Puritan controversialist Hezekiah Woodward is questioned for two days about "scandalous" pamphlets.
 * The publication of The Bloody Tenet of Persecution marks the start of a major controversy between Roger Williams and John Cotton on religious tolerance in a Calvinist context. The controversy plays out through a series of works issued by both men in the coming years, through to Williams' The Bloody Tenet Yet More Bloody (1652).

Prose

 * John Milton
 * Areopagitica (tract against censorship)
 * Of Education
 * Roger Williams – The Bloody Tenet of Persecution
 * Francisco de Quevedo
 * Vida de Marco Bruto
 * Vida de San Pablo Apóstol
 * Juan Eusebio Nieremberg – Vida del santo padre y gran siervo de Dios el beato Francisco de Borja
 * René Descartes – Principia Philosophiae
 * Marin Mersenne – Cogitata physico-mathematica
 * Evangelista Torricelli – Opera geometrica
 * Giulio Strozzi (editor) – Le glorie della signora Anna Renzi romana (published in Venice; a tribute to Anna Renzi, the "first diva")

Drama

 * Lope de Vega – Fiestas del Santísimo Sacramento
 * Pierre Corneille – Le Menteur
 * Mildmay Fane, 2nd Earl of Westmorland – Virtue's Triumph

Births

 * August 6 – Louise de la Vallière, French royal mistress, subject of a Dumas novel (died 1710)
 * October 2 – François-Timoléon de Choisy, French memoirist (died 1724)
 * Unknown dates
 * Matsuo Bashō (松尾 芭蕉), Japanese poet (died 1694)
 * Elinor James, English pamphleteer (died 1719)

Deaths

 * January 30 – William Chillingworth, English religious controversialist (born 1602)
 * March 5 – Ferrante Pallavicino, Italian satirist (born 1615)
 * March 8 – Xu Xiake (徐霞客), Chinese travel writer and geographer (born 1587)
 * September 7 – Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio, Italian historian (born 1579)
 * September 8 – Francis Quarles, English poet (born 1592)
 * November 10 – Luís Vélez de Guevara, Spanish dramatist and novelist (born 1579)
 * November 21 – Raphael Sobiehrd-Mnishovsky, Czech lawyer and writer (born 1580)