1684 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1684.

Events

 * June 25 – The death of Robert Leighton, Archbishop of Glasgow, gives rise to establishment of the Leighton Library at Dunblane, the oldest surviving public subscription (lending) library in Scotland.
 * July 25 – The English novelist and dramatist Mary Griffith marries merchant George Pix.
 * November 11 – The English dramatist Nathaniel Lee is admitted to Bedlam Hospital for the insane.
 * unknown dates
 * The Protestant Academy of Saumur is closed down by King Louis XIV of France.
 * John Banks' historical play The Island Queens, or the Death of Mary Queen of Scotland is banned from the stage; it is produced as The Albion Queens twenty years later (1704).
 * Pierre Bayle begins his journal of literary criticism, Nouvelles de la république des lettres.

Fiction

 * Aphra Behn – Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister
 * John Bunyan – The Pilgrim's Progress, Second Part
 * Giovanni Paolo Marana – Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy
 * Ihara Saikaku – The Great Mirror of Beauties

Drama

 * Jean de La Chapelle – Ajax
 * John Horne – Fortune's Task, or the Fickle Fair One
 * John Lacy – Sir Hercules Buffoon
 * Simon Neale – The Mistaken Beauty (adapted from Corneille)
 * John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (possible author) – Sodom, or the Quintessence of Debauchery
 * Thomas Southerne – The Disappointment, or the Mother of Fashion
 * Pedro Calderon de la Barca
 * Los cabellos de Absalón
 * Guárdate del agua mansa

Poetry

 * Aphra Behn – Poems upon Several Occasions
 * Pavao Ritter Vitezović – Odiljenje sigetsko (Farewell at Sziget)

Non-fiction

 * Jakob Abbadie – Traité de la vérité de la religion chrétienne
 * Dorcas Dole – Once More a Warning to Thee, O England, but more particularly to the inhabitants of the city of Bristol (by a Quaker)
 * Edward Phillips – Enchiridion linguae latinae
 * Christian Knorr von Rosenroth – Kabbala Denudata (publication completed)
 * Christopher Sandius – Bibliotheca antitrinitariorum
 * George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax – The Character of a Trimmer
 * Antonio de Solís y Rivadeneyra – Historia de la conquista de México

Births

 * February 21 – Justus van Effen, Dutch journalist writing also in French (died 1735)
 * October 16 – Peter Walkden, English diarist (died 1769)
 * December 3 – Ludvig Holberg, Danish/Norwegian essayist, philosopher and playwright (died 1754)

Deaths

 * April 1 – Roger Williams, English-born American theologian (born 1603)
 * October 1 – Pierre Corneille, French dramatist (born 1606)
 * December 7 – John Oldham, English satirical poet and translator (born 1653)
 * Unknown date – Francisco de Avellaneda, Spanish dramatist and poet (born c. 1625)