1746 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1746.

Events

 * May 9 – Voltaire, on being admitted into the Académie française, gives a discours de réception in which he criticizes Boileau's poetry.
 * June 18 – Samuel Johnson signs a contract to compile A Dictionary of the English Language for a group of London booksellers led by Robert Dodsley at a literary breakfast.
 * August 28 – A Native American massacre on this day of two white families in Deerfield, Massachusetts, gives rise to the first known poem by an African American, Lucy Terry, at the time a slave of around 16: "Bars Fight, August 28, 1746".
 * October 4 – Irish actor Spranger Barry makes his London stage debut in the title role of Othello at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane (with Charles Macklin as Iago).
 * unknown dates
 * The probable first performance of Carlo Goldoni's comedy Servant of Two Masters (Il servitore di due padroni) takes place at the Teatro San Samuele in Venice.
 * The oldest manuscript of Jean de Joinville's Life of Saint Louis is rediscovered in Brussels.
 * Élie Catherine Fréron founds his controversial journal Lettres de la comtesse de...

Prose

 * John Arbuthnot (died 1735) – Miscellanies
 * John Collier as "Tim Bobbin" – A View of the Lancashire Dialect by way of dialogue between Tummus... and Meary...
 * Zachary Grey – A Word or Two of Advice to William Warburton
 * James Hervey – Meditations Among the Tombs
 * Soame Jenyns – The Modern Fine Gentleman
 * Jacques Rochette de La Morlière – Angola
 * Pierre Louis Maupertuis – Astronomie nautique, volume 2
 * Tobias Smollett – Advice
 * Lauritz de Thurah – Den Danske Vitruvius, volume I
 * John Upton – Critical Observations on Shakespeare
 * Horace Walpole – The Beauties
 * John Wesley
 * The Principles of a Methodist Father Explain'd
 * Sermons on Several Occasions

Drama

 * Charles Macklin – Henry VII
 * Pierre de Marivaux – Le Préjugé vaincu
 * Takeda Izumo I, Takeda Izumo II, Namiki Sōsuke and Miyoshi Shōraku – Sugawara Denju Tenarai Kagami

Poetry

 * Thomas Blacklock – Poems
 * William Collins – Odes
 * Thomas Cooke – A Hymn to Liberty
 * Christian Fürchtegott Gellert – Fabeln und Erzählungen (Fables and Stories) (in verse)
 * Joseph Warton – Odes on Various Subjects
 * See also 1746 in poetry

Births

 * January 12 – Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Swiss educational reformer (died 1827)
 * January 25 – Stéphanie Félicité, comtesse de Genlis, French writer, harpist, educator (died 1830)
 * March 27 – Michael Bruce, Scottish poet (died 1767)
 * April 3 – Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainville, French fantasy novelist (died 1805)
 * May 3 – Radu Golescu, Wallachian statesman and literary sponsor (died 1818)
 * December 21 – José de la Cruz (Huseng Sisiw), Filipino writer (died 1829)
 * unknown date – Victor d'Hupay, French philosopher (died 1818)

Deaths

 * February 4 – Robert Blair, Scottish member of the "Graveyard poets" (born 1699)
 * February 8 – Anton Josef Kirchweger, Latin Pietist author (year of birth unknown)
 * May 16 – Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, Italian Jewish rabbi, kabbalist and philosopher (born 1707)
 * May 22 – Thomas Southerne, Irish dramatist (born 1660)
 * November 12 – Mary Leapor, English kitchenmaid poet (born 1722; died of measles)
 * December 6 – Lady Grizel Baillie, Scottish poet (born 1665)
 * unknown date – Frederic Count de Thoms, German biographer of King Louis XIV of France and art collector (born 1669)