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 Although it will not be published until 1660, he produces presentation copies for friends.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.

Prose

 * 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

Drama

 * Anonymous – Crafty Cromwell
 * Anonymous – Kentish Fair, or the Parliament Sold to Their Best Worth
 * Anonymous ("Mercurius Melancholicus") – Mistress Parliament Her Gossiping
 * Jasper Mayne – The Amorous War

Poetry

 * 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 (ed. Jusepe Antonio González de Salas) – El Parnaso español, en dos cumbre dividido, con las nueve musas

Births

 * February 1 – Elkanah Settle, English poet and dramatist (died 1724)
 * November 12 – Juana Inés de la Cruz, Mexican Hieronymite nun, polymath, poet and playwright (died 1695)
 * Unknown date – Gaspard Abeille, French poet (died 1718)
 * Earliest year – Mihai Iștvanovici, Wallachian typographer and poet (died c. 1720)

Deaths

 * February 2 – George Abbot, English writer (born c. 1603)
 * February 22 – Wilhelm Lamormaini, Luxembourgish Jesuit theologian (born 1570)
 * March 12 – Tirso de Molina, Spanish dramatist (born 1571)
 * May 26 – Vincent Voiture, French writer and poet (born 1597)
 * May 28 (bur.) – William Percy, English poet and playwright (born 1570/74)
 * July 31 – Benedictus van Haeften, Dutch theologian (born 1588)
 * August 20 – Edward Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury Anglo-Welsh writer and soldier (born 1574)
 * September 1 – Marin Mersenne, French theologian and philosopher (born 1588)
 * December 16 – Arthur Duck, English lawyer and author (born 1580)